Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers h

Question

Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers  has made difficulties for savings banks as they are competing with such  unregulated investment vehicles as money market certificates.

(A) has made difficulties for savings banks as they are competing with such

(B) has made difficulties for savings banks competing with such

(C) have made difficulties for savings banks as they are competing with

(D) have made it difficult for savings banks to compete with such

(E) have made it difficult for savings banks as they are competing with such

globaldesi · Answer

Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers  has made difficulties for savings banks as they are competing with such  unregulated investment vehicles as money market certificates.

Noun reference is "Federally imposed restrictions " that is plural. Hence usage should be have
so lets remove A and B
Now theses restrictions have made it diffcult for banks to compete.
Not that because banks are competing so these restrictions are making difficulties.
D is the only sentence that logically explains this situation nicely.

(A)  has made difficulties for savings banks as they are competing with such   subject-verb disagreement

(B)  has made difficulties for savings banks competing with such   subject-verb disagreement

(C)  have made difficulties for savings banks as they are competing with   Incorrect meaning

(D) have made it difficult for savings banks to compete with such

(E)  have made it difficult for savings banks as they are competing with such  Incorrect meaning

daspri2809 · Answer

IMO D

A and B have SV error.
In C  such  is missing. Also, what difficulties?
E is eliminated because of meaning error. what have these restrictions made difficult?

D is clear and concise

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Bombsante · Answer

Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers  has made difficulties for savings banks as they are competing with such  unregulated investment vehicles as money market certificates.

Analyzing the meaning of the sentence reveals that  restrictions  (plural)  have  (plural) made it difficult for banks to compete and also gives an example of a type of competition.
Since subject  restrictions  is plural verb has to be plural, eliminate options A & B for S-V error.
Such as is used to give examples, therefore, eliminate option C
Only deal breaker for me between D & E is use of  they  in E which gives ambiguity. Therefore, IMO D is the answer.

techloverforever · Answer

In option D and E, what does 'it' refer to? I eliminated these options as I was unsure of this reference

Posted from my mobile device

AjiteshArun · Answer

In option D, the  it  refers to "to compete..."

The  it  in option E doesn't really refer to anything in the sentence.

aaggarwal191 · Answer

what does it refers to ?in the above post

Abhishek009 · Answer

It has been used here as a placeholder . read more from our GMAT SC Guru daagh https://gmatclub.com/forum/placeholder- ... ml#p905757

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  aaggarwal191 , in option D,  it  refers to the phrase  to compete with such unregulated investment vehicles as money market certificates .

This is one of the cases where the pronoun ( it ) is used  before  the antecedent.

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  pronoun use  before  the antecedent , its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

The right answer to this question should be D . As with all SC questions (and Verbal Qs on the GMAT in general), the ideal strat to follow is to eliminate the answers that don't work until you're left with the right one. Options A & B - The first toss up is between 'has' and 'have'. Well, what has/have made things difficult? It is the restrictions, which are plural . Hence, the use of 'has' in A and B is incorrect. OUT Option C - At first glance, the " it " in D and E seems kind of incorrect, because what noun is it replacing? However, the pronoun 'it' can be used as a placeholder pronoun to describe the general state of things(Eg - It rained today). In fact, for this sentence, the usage of 'it' is actually the optimal way to go, since things in general have been made difficult. It is not difficulties themselves that have been made , and this is why C is incorrect. OUT Option E - D and E don't have much in between them, but what difference exists is actually very significant. E says that "the restrictions have made it difficult for savings banks as a whole because they have to compete". But, this is NOT the intended meaning. The difficulty created is specific to the action of competing. Hence, D's construction of "have made it difficult to compete" captures the meaning far better. Therefore, E is OUT . Hence, D is the right answer . Always remember to eliminate to arrive at the correct answer, and only eliminate an option when you're sure it is wrong. This will help improve your overall accuracy! - Matoo If you felt that this was useful, be sure to hit me up with a Kudos!

ChiranjeevSingh · Answer

Here's the   official explanation   provided by the GMAC for this question:
 
This sentence refers to a difficulty (or difficulties) that savings banks face as a result of federal restrictions. The original version suggests that there may be some relationship between the difficulties and the fact that the banks compete with unregulated investment vehicles. However, this wording is uninformative and puzzling in that it does not clearly indicate what the difficulties are or why they are mentioned in relation to the competition. Furthermore, the singular verb  has  does not agree with the plural subject  restrictions . 
 
 Option A:  The singular verb  has  does not agree with the plural subject  restrictions . The wording is indirect and ambiguous. It could beintended to mean that the restrictions have made it difficult for savings banks to compete with the unregulated investment vehicles or that the restrictions have caused some unspecified difficulties for the savings banks. On either interpretation, with this wording,  as  can have two different meanings:  during the time that  or  because .

Option B:  The singular verb  has  does not agree with the plural subject  restrictions . The wording does not clearly indicate whether the difficulties are related to the banks' competition with unregulated investment vehicles.

Option C:  This wording is indirect and ambiguous. It could be intended to mean that the restrictions have made it difficult for savings banks to compete with the unregulated investment vehicles or that the restrictions have caused some unspecified difficulties for the savings banks. On either interpretation, with this wording,  as  can have two different meanings:  during the time that  or  because .

Option D:  Correct. The verbs all agree with their subjects. The wording is clear, concise, and direct and uses the correct idiomatic form  make it difficult for X to do Y .

Option E:  This wording is indirect and ambiguous. It could be intended to mean that the restrictions have made it difficult for savings banks to compete with the unregulated investment vehicles or that the restrictions have caused some unspecified difficulties for the savings banks. On either interpretation, with this wording,  as  can have two different meanings:  during the time that  or  because . 
 
The correct answer is D.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

gmexamtaker1 · Answer

Hello  AjiteshArun ,
I was wondering whether you could help me with the following issue, 
Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't the "it" in answer choice D called expletive it?, so

this one,
Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers  have made it difficult for savings banks to compete with such  unregulated investment vehicles as money market certificates.

could be also written like this, by removing "it" and placing the actual thing that "it" replaces 
Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers have made to compete with such unregulated investment vehicles as money market certificates difficult for saving banks

My question is the following, when we want to test what "it" refers to , and we replace it with the phrase , should it make grammatical sense except for meaning? What I mean is, "Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers  have made to compete  with such unregulated" I think this is not grammatically correct (the correct should be  competing  with such unregulated... right?) , however the reason we accept it is because meaning wise it makes sense even if it is not grammatically perfect when we try to replace "it"?

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  UNSTOPPABLE12 ,

Here is a very short example:
1.  He found RC difficult.

(1) is straightforward. It is ~ "he found { something } difficult".

2.  He found it difficult to stop reading the passage.

In (2), he again found { something } difficult. But what exactly did he find difficult? "To stop reading the passage".

The reason we go for (1) with a simple noun like  RC  but switch to (2) for a more complicated ("heavy") thought like  to stop reading the passage  is that (generally) it is easier to understand something that is "right-shifted" (I don't remember the exact name for the process). For example, in the previous sentence, I went with " it   is  easier  to understand something that is 'right-shifted' " instead of " to understand something that is 'right-shifted'   is  easier". The final point here is that choosing to shift a "heavy" component of the sentence to the right is not always a question of making something easier to understand. In some cases, it is mandatory. This is why you may feel that switching the "heavy" component to the left results in a sentence that doesn't sound good (because (a) it usually doesn't, and (b) in some cases, it isn't possible).

I'm not aware of any simple way to decide when it is okay to not use an  it  to move something to the right, so more opinions on this would be welcome.

abbsan · Answer

what is it referring to in option D .also if in meaning wise in option c imposed restriction have made difficulties why it is wrong

GMATNinja · Answer

The pronoun "it" in (D) doesn't really refer to anything, making it a non-referential pronoun. Non-referential pronouns are somewhat rare on the GMAT, but we have seen them in a handful of correct OAs. (For more on that, check out  this post .)

As for (C), the meaning of the "as" is a bit confusing. Does it mean "while"? As in, "restrictions have made difficulties for savings banks  while  they are competing..."? If so, it would seem to suggest that the difficulties only arise WHILE the banks are competing with unregulated investment vehicles.

Or does the "as" mean "because"? If so, it would suggest that "restrictions have made difficulties for savings banks  because  they are competing...".

These two interpretations have completely different meanings. That's not necessarily a deal-breaker, but the meaning is much clearer in choice (D) and isn't really open to interpretation.

Also, (C) introduces another an extra, somewhat confusing pronoun ("they"). So you could argue that both (C) and (D) have one confusing pronoun. The meaning/clarity issue is a much bigger factor.

I hope that helps!

Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers h

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Federally imposed restrictions on how much they may pay small savers h

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