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AbdurRakib
Joined: 11 May 2014
Last visit: 08 Nov 2025
Posts: 465
Given Kudos: 220
Status:I don't stop when I'm Tired,I stop when I'm done
Location: Bangladesh
Concentration: Finance, Leadership
Schools: Wharton '20 Yale '20 Tepper '20
GPA: 2.81
WE:Business Development (Real Estate)
Updated on: 13 Jun 2021, 14:39
Originally posted by AbdurRakib on 13 Jun 2017, 11:44.
Last edited by Bunuel on 13 Jun 2021, 14:39, edited 2 times in total.
Last edited by Bunuel on 13 Jun 2021, 14:39, edited 2 times in total.
Renamed the topic and edited the question.
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C
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
55%
(hard)
Question Stats:
60% (01:56) correct
40%
(02:13)
wrong
based on 14637
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
With the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve the congestion that has led to at least four class-action lawsuits and thousands of complaints from frustrated customers.
(A) the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve
(B) the patience of its customers and its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives that try to relieve
(C) its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
(D) its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
(E) its network and its customers’ patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving
(A) the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve
(B) the patience of its customers and its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives that try to relieve
(C) its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
(D) its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
(E) its network and its customers’ patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/17/business/america-online-moves-to-placate-its-angry-users.html
With its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, America Online announced a series of new initiatives yesterday to try to relieve the congestion that has led to at least four class-action lawsuits and thousands of complaints from frustrated consumers.
Customer (Im)Patience
First glance
The sentence has only one word before the underline (with) and then splits between the patience and its network. The issue might have to do with Meaning, Sentence Structure, or some other issue that has to do with which noun to use after the word with.
Issues
(1) Parallelism / Meaning: X and Y
The opening part of the sentence contains the parallel structure X and Y. With the patience of its customers is the X element and with its network strained to the breaking point is the Y element.
Because the parallelism makes the two with prepositional phrases parallel, the part about strained to the breaking point appears to apply only to the Y element. If that is the case, though, then what does with the patience of its customers mean? The customers are actually patient? That doesn’t go along with the meaning of the rest of the sentence. Choice (D) reverses the order of network and customers but commits the same error: strained to the breaking point applies only to the patience of customers, not to the network.
In choice (B), the parallelism is between its customers and its network, implying that the customers and the network have patience. The latter is illogical.
Eliminate choices (A), (B), and (D) for faulty parallelism leading to an illogical meaning.
(2) Meaning: trying; try; to try relieving
The original sentence says that the company announced…initiatives trying to relieve the congestion. The initiatives were announced in order to try to relieve the congestion—the initiatives weren’t actually already in place at the moment that they were announced. Further, the initiatives themselves aren’t trying to do anything. The executives are perhaps trying to relieve the problem, but it’s illogical to say the initiatives are trying to do something. Eliminate choice (A) for faulty meaning.
Check the end of the remaining answers.
(B) company announced…initiatives that try to relieve the congestion
(C) company announced…initiatives to try to relieve the congestion
(D) company announced…initiatives to try relieving
(E) company announced…initiatives to try relieving
Answer (B) has a similar issue to answer (A). First, the present-tense try doesn’t match the meaning of the rest of the sentence, as the initiatives have not yet been launched. Second, the initiatives themselves are not trying to do something. Rather, the executives are introducing the initiatives in order to try to accomplish a certain goal. Eliminate choice (B) for faulty meaning.
Answers (D) and (E) also convey an inappropriate meaning. You might decide to try hang-gliding on your next vacation, but you wouldn’t decide to try getting a good score on the GMAT. Rather, you would decide to try to get a good score. The latter scenario indicates intent: you do something in order to try to get to a certain result. In that scenario, use try + infinitive. Eliminate choices (D) and (E) for faulty meaning.
The Correct Answer
Correct answer (C) fixes the parallelism problem by pulling both X and Y elements into one prepositional phrase: With (its network AND the patience of its customers) strained to the breaking point. In this case, strained to the breaking point can apply to both elements. This choice also uses the language to try to relieve in order to indicate intent: the company is taking action in order to try to achieve a certain result.
With its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, America Online announced a series of new initiatives yesterday to try to relieve the congestion that has led to at least four class-action lawsuits and thousands of complaints from frustrated consumers.
Customer (Im)Patience
(A) Parallelism / Meaning (X and Y); Meaning (trying)
(B) Parallelism / Meaning (X and Y); Meaning (try)
(C) CORRECT
(D) Parallelism / Meaning (X and Y); Meaning (to try relieving)
(E) Meaning (to try relieving)
(B) Parallelism / Meaning (X and Y); Meaning (try)
(C) CORRECT
(D) Parallelism / Meaning (X and Y); Meaning (to try relieving)
(E) Meaning (to try relieving)
First glance
The sentence has only one word before the underline (with) and then splits between the patience and its network. The issue might have to do with Meaning, Sentence Structure, or some other issue that has to do with which noun to use after the word with.
Issues
(1) Parallelism / Meaning: X and Y
The opening part of the sentence contains the parallel structure X and Y. With the patience of its customers is the X element and with its network strained to the breaking point is the Y element.
Because the parallelism makes the two with prepositional phrases parallel, the part about strained to the breaking point appears to apply only to the Y element. If that is the case, though, then what does with the patience of its customers mean? The customers are actually patient? That doesn’t go along with the meaning of the rest of the sentence. Choice (D) reverses the order of network and customers but commits the same error: strained to the breaking point applies only to the patience of customers, not to the network.
In choice (B), the parallelism is between its customers and its network, implying that the customers and the network have patience. The latter is illogical.
Eliminate choices (A), (B), and (D) for faulty parallelism leading to an illogical meaning.
(2) Meaning: trying; try; to try relieving
The original sentence says that the company announced…initiatives trying to relieve the congestion. The initiatives were announced in order to try to relieve the congestion—the initiatives weren’t actually already in place at the moment that they were announced. Further, the initiatives themselves aren’t trying to do anything. The executives are perhaps trying to relieve the problem, but it’s illogical to say the initiatives are trying to do something. Eliminate choice (A) for faulty meaning.
Check the end of the remaining answers.
(B) company announced…initiatives that try to relieve the congestion
(C) company announced…initiatives to try to relieve the congestion
(D) company announced…initiatives to try relieving
(E) company announced…initiatives to try relieving
Answer (B) has a similar issue to answer (A). First, the present-tense try doesn’t match the meaning of the rest of the sentence, as the initiatives have not yet been launched. Second, the initiatives themselves are not trying to do something. Rather, the executives are introducing the initiatives in order to try to accomplish a certain goal. Eliminate choice (B) for faulty meaning.
Answers (D) and (E) also convey an inappropriate meaning. You might decide to try hang-gliding on your next vacation, but you wouldn’t decide to try getting a good score on the GMAT. Rather, you would decide to try to get a good score. The latter scenario indicates intent: you do something in order to try to get to a certain result. In that scenario, use try + infinitive. Eliminate choices (D) and (E) for faulty meaning.
The Correct Answer
Correct answer (C) fixes the parallelism problem by pulling both X and Y elements into one prepositional phrase: With (its network AND the patience of its customers) strained to the breaking point. In this case, strained to the breaking point can apply to both elements. This choice also uses the language to try to relieve in order to indicate intent: the company is taking action in order to try to achieve a certain result.
15 Aug 2018, 11:30
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Hello Everyone!
Let's take a look at this question, and narrow down the options quickly to find the correct answer! To get started, here is the original sentence with any major differences between each option highlighted in orange:
With the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve the congestion that has led to at least four class-action lawsuits and thousands of complaints from frustrated customers.
(A) the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve
(B) the patience of its customers and its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives that try to relieve
(C) its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
(D) its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
(E) its network and its customers’ patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving
After a quick glance over each option, only 2 major differences appear between each option:
1. The order of items in the beginning: customers + network / network + customers
2. Their endings: trying to relieve / that try to relieve / to try to relieve / to try relieving
#1 on our list will eliminate the most options quickly (either 2 or 3), so let's start there. Let's look at what each sentence means when we switch around the order of the customers and network:
With the patience of the customers and its network strained to the breaking point = the patience of the customers and the patience of its network
This is the WRONG option because it says that the patience of BOTH the customers and the network is strained, which doesn't make sense. The network is strained, but doesn't have the ability to be patient - it's not a person!
With its network and the patience of the customers strained to the breaking point = the network is strained and the patience of the customers is strained
This is the CORRECT option because it puts the emphasis on BOTH the network and the customers being strained, which is logical and true!
This means we can eliminate options A & B right away because they create an illogical parallel statement.
Now that we're left with only 3 options, let's tackle #2 on the list: their endings. For this, we need to know the difference between "to try to" and "try doing" something:
to try to do something = to put in an effort to do something you already know can be successful / "I want to try to learn the piano this year."
try doing something = to do something as an experiment; you're not sure it will be successful / "Try adding more salt to your cookie batter."
For this sentence, it makes the most sense to say that they company created initiative to try to relieve congestion because they know it's possible to do, but they just need to put in the effort. So let's see how each answer stacks up:
(C) its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
This option is CORRECT because the beginning of the phrase is in the correct order to make sense. It also uses the correct "to try to," which conveys the correct meaning that the company has to put in an effort to fix the problem they know can be fixed.
(D) its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
This option is INCORRECT because it uses the phrase "to try relieving," which suggests that the company isn't sure their initiatives will be possible or even work. It's much stronger to say "to try to" do something because it shows that success is definitely possible.
(E) its network and its customers’ patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving
This option is INCORRECT for a couple reasons. First, it's not necessary to use the apostrophe in "customers'" because it's not being followed by a plural word (for example "customers' chairs" would be okay). It also uses the incorrect "to try relieving" which conveys the wrong meaning.
There you have it - option C is the correct answer!
Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
Let's take a look at this question, and narrow down the options quickly to find the correct answer! To get started, here is the original sentence with any major differences between each option highlighted in orange:
With the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve the congestion that has led to at least four class-action lawsuits and thousands of complaints from frustrated customers.
(A) the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve
(B) the patience of its customers and its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives that try to relieve
(C) its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
(D) its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
(E) its network and its customers’ patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving
After a quick glance over each option, only 2 major differences appear between each option:
1. The order of items in the beginning: customers + network / network + customers
2. Their endings: trying to relieve / that try to relieve / to try to relieve / to try relieving
#1 on our list will eliminate the most options quickly (either 2 or 3), so let's start there. Let's look at what each sentence means when we switch around the order of the customers and network:
With the patience of the customers and its network strained to the breaking point = the patience of the customers and the patience of its network
This is the WRONG option because it says that the patience of BOTH the customers and the network is strained, which doesn't make sense. The network is strained, but doesn't have the ability to be patient - it's not a person!
With its network and the patience of the customers strained to the breaking point = the network is strained and the patience of the customers is strained
This is the CORRECT option because it puts the emphasis on BOTH the network and the customers being strained, which is logical and true!
This means we can eliminate options A & B right away because they create an illogical parallel statement.
Now that we're left with only 3 options, let's tackle #2 on the list: their endings. For this, we need to know the difference between "to try to" and "try doing" something:
to try to do something = to put in an effort to do something you already know can be successful / "I want to try to learn the piano this year."
try doing something = to do something as an experiment; you're not sure it will be successful / "Try adding more salt to your cookie batter."
For this sentence, it makes the most sense to say that they company created initiative to try to relieve congestion because they know it's possible to do, but they just need to put in the effort. So let's see how each answer stacks up:
(C) its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
This option is CORRECT because the beginning of the phrase is in the correct order to make sense. It also uses the correct "to try to," which conveys the correct meaning that the company has to put in an effort to fix the problem they know can be fixed.
(D) its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
This option is INCORRECT because it uses the phrase "to try relieving," which suggests that the company isn't sure their initiatives will be possible or even work. It's much stronger to say "to try to" do something because it shows that success is definitely possible.
(E) its network and its customers’ patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving
This option is INCORRECT for a couple reasons. First, it's not necessary to use the apostrophe in "customers'" because it's not being followed by a plural word (for example "customers' chairs" would be okay). It also uses the incorrect "to try relieving" which conveys the wrong meaning.
There you have it - option C is the correct answer!
Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
13 Jun 2017, 16:14
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AbdurRakib
Dear AbdurRakib
I'm happy to respond.
I began focusing on the split at the end. The verb "try" most naturally takes the infinitive; "try" + [gerund] sounds casual. Also, the infinitive of purpose sounds more natural than a participle or a "that" clause. Therefore, (C) seems like the best choice.
Also, notice that we don't have to repeat the word "with," so (A) & (D) are out.
The phrase "its customers’ patience" in (E) is very awkward.
Rhetorically, when we have a preposition and then two elements, one long and one short, it often makes more sense to have the shorter one first so that we can see the relationship that both elements have to the preposition. Thus:
With its network and the patience of its customers = more preferable
With the patience of its customers and its network = less preferable
All of these work together to make (C) the best answer.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
25 Aug 2021, 22:54 
