The Democrats have accused the Republicans of resorting to

Question

The Democrats have accused the Republicans of resorting to dirty tricks by planting a mole on the Democratâ€™s planning committee and then used the information obtained to sabotage the Democratâ€™s campaign.

(A) used the information obtained to sabotage
(B) used the information they had obtained to sabotage
(C) of using the information they had obtained to sabotage
(D) using the information obtained to sabotage
(E) to have used the information obtained to sabotage

mdf2 · Answer

I would say D.

parallel with "planting" , linked to "dirty tricks"

greenandwise · Answer

Wow...this was harder than I thought for me...D is corret because it is not only parallel..the "have accused" part in the beginning of the sentence is in the present perfect tense indicating an action that is continuing in the future therfore leaving C and D, but I was able to rule out C because the "accusation" is of "dirty tricks" after that the resulting action was sabotage...the "of" in C implies that the sabotage is a part of that accusation when it is a result of the dirty tricks...does that make sense?

aryan · Answer

Sorry, I'm late.
My pick would be D only. Its a parallel construction.

HongHu · Answer

Yes, it is in parallel with "planting", not with "of resorting".

Marina · Answer

OA is C. I also picked D when was doing this problem. Everyone is catching that the problem he/she has to correct is in the parallel structure but we all have focused on the wrong thingâ€¦

An explanation for the choice C is that we need to make parallel: â€œThe Democrats have accused the Republicans of resortingâ€

banerjeea_98 · Answer

OA is C. I also picked D when was doing this problem. Everyone is catching that the problem he/she has to correct is in the parallel structure but we all have focused on the wrong thingâ€¦

An explanation for the choice C is that we need to make parallel: â€œThe Democrats have accused the Republicans of resortingâ€

jpv · Answer

OA is C. I also picked D when was doing this problem. Everyone is catching that the problem he/she has to correct is in the parallel structure but we all have focused on the wrong thingâ€¦

An explanation for the choice C is that we need to make parallel: â€œThe Democrats have accused the Republicans of resortingâ€

ywilfred · Answer

It seems 'by' is just a middleman, something GMAT employs to confuse your choice when it comes to being parallel and also when it comes to choosing an answer with the right subject-verb agreement.

Essentially, a middleman just serves to dish up extra information whic is redundant. In this case, it just serves to tell you what the dirty trick is - planting a mole.

You can remove that whole phrase and now it looks really parallel:

" The Democrats have accused the Republicans of resorting to dirty tricks and of using the information they had obtained to sabotage."

Someone raised the issue of the hazy pronoun reference in the use of 'they'. 'They' would naturally attach itself to the nearest noun, and here, it's the Republicans.

This is just my explanation, which I think makes sense.

BTW, I got this wrong too... i went for (D). But (C) looks logical now.

HongHu · Answer

I mean, both sounds quite good to me, depending on what the meaning of the sentence is.

D accused R of resorting to dirty tricks by doing something and of using the info to do something else

D accused R of resourting to dirty tricks by doing something and then doing something else

Both seems perfectly ok to me. :???

Marina · Answer

Honestly, I felt the same way as HongHu about choices D and C, therefore, I wanted to get your opinion on this questionâ€¦

banerjeea_98 · Answer

I don't think a pronoun always attaches itself to the nearest noun, else why wud we have a concept of clear pronoun antedecent in SC. "They" still looks ambiguous to me.

jpv · Answer

Those who are favouring (C), how will you justify this sentence:

In the class, girls accused boys of stealing the design they had prepared.

what does "they" modify?

ywilfred · Answer

The author meant the girls, but because of the way the pronoun sticks to the nearest noun (the boys), you get pronoun reference errors.

jpv · Answer

exactly.. same statement we can extend to our original sentence...

dipaksingh · Answer

the structure of "C"

D accused R of resorting to dirty tricks by doing something and THEN of using the info to do something else 

the structure of "D"

D accused R of resourting to dirty tricks by doing something and then doing something else 

doesn't the use of "then" in "C" makes it awkard. to make it parallal IMO "then" should be removed.

in that way "D" seems best.
please comment.

HongHu · Answer

Very good point. I agree with you. Again (D) is better than (C) (in many ways :-D

).

karun_aggarwal · Answer

The Democrats have accused the Republicans of resorting to dirty tricks by planting a mole on the Democratâ€™s planning committee and then used the information obtained to sabotage the Democratâ€™s campaign. 

(A) used the information obtained to sabotage 
(B) used the information they had obtained to sabotage 
(C) of using the information they had obtained to sabotage 
(D) using the information obtained to sabotage 
(E) to have used the information obtained to sabotage

i chose C, here's my explanations

by in certaining choice c in the original sentence 
The Democrats have accused the Republicans  of resorting  to dirty tricks by planting a mole on the Democratâ€™s planning committee and then  of using  the information they had obtained to sabotage the Democratâ€™s campaign.

democarets are accusing of two things!

The Democrats have accused the Republicans of resorting to

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