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suyashjhawar
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 09 Sep 2010, 20:13
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B
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

Difficulty:

65% (hard)

Question Stats:

40% (01:11) correct 60% (01:17) wrong based on 844 sessions

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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that there was limited parental involvement and an abundance of administrative hassle.

(A) the new teacher discovered that there was limited parental involvement
(B) the new teacher discovered that there were limited parental involvement
(C) the new teacher discovered limited parental involvement
(D) the new teacher would discover that there was limited parental involvement
(E) the new teacher had discovered that there was limited parental involvement
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B
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devashish
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 10 Sep 2010, 04:06
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I will go with B definitely.
Reason:
Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that there was limited parental involvement and an abundance of administrative hassle.
Here the Sentence can be broken as follows:
Subject: the new teacher
Verb: Discovered
Object Clause: there was limited parental involvement and an abundance of administrative hassle.

As seen clearly the Object clause has changed the Ordering of Subject. So in the Object clause:
Subject: limited parental involvement and an abundance of administrative hassle.
Verb: was
Clause: There.

Flipping the Subject and Object in the Object clause:
Limited parental involvement AND an abundance of administrative hassle WERE there.

So the correct answer is B.

Hopefully I have not confused more than I have explained.
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 28 Feb 2016, 21:42
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Hi mikemcgarry / AryamaDuttaSaikia,

Can you please help me understand the preference given to option B over option C for this particular question?

Even though I agree that B is grammatically and structurally correct here, I felt C is correct because C is less wordy than B.
C states "Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered A and B". Why is the usage "discovered that" required here?
Also I did not see any grammatical error or meaning error in C. So I picked C as the answer.
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 29 Feb 2016, 01:38
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Vyshak, C is wrong because the teacher didn't discover the involvement itself. He or she discovered that there wasn't very much involvement!

Having said that, B is a very clunky sentence, and I don't think it would fly on the GMAT! Like many of the non-official Q's making the rounds here, this one is not worth much of our time.
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 21 Aug 2016, 20:32
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Since this is a 700 level question I guess I over thought the question. But I need an explanation to prove myself correct.

"within first few weeks" is one action and "discovered" is another action. Shouldn't past perfect be used here? In other words, why E isn't right?
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 22 Aug 2016, 12:07
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manhasnoname
Since this is a 700 level question I guess I over thought the question. But I need an explanation to prove myself correct.

"within first few weeks" is one action and "discovered" is another action. Shouldn't past perfect be used here? In other words, why E isn't right?
Show more

"Within first few weeks" is not a point of time - past perfect would be appropriate, if the sentence were something as follows:
By the end of the month, the new teacher had discovered.....

Moreover the verb "was" is wrong - it should be plural: there WERE limited parental involvement AND an abundance of administrative hassle.

Therefore E is wrong.
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 22 Aug 2016, 12:44
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I think the OA is wrong the correct answer is option A.
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 23 Aug 2016, 10:52
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nk9285
I think the OA is wrong the correct answer is option A.
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No, it is alright: A is wrong because a plural verb is required - there were two things:
1. limited parental involvement
AND
2. an abundance of administrative hassle.
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 23 Sep 2016, 07:23
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sayantanc2k
manhasnoname
Since this is a 700 level question I guess I over thought the question. But I need an explanation to prove myself correct.

"within first few weeks" is one action and "discovered" is another action. Shouldn't past perfect be used here? In other words, why E isn't right?

"Within first few weeks" is not a point of time - past perfect would be appropriate, if the sentence were something as follows:
By the end of the month, the new teacher had discovered.....

Moreover the verb "was" is wrong - it should be plural: there WERE limited parental involvement AND an abundance of administrative hassle.

Therefore E is wrong.
Show more


Sir why cant the answer be C.
I agree that B is correct but not convinced why C is wrong
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 23 Sep 2016, 09:36
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suramya26
sayantanc2k
manhasnoname
Since this is a 700 level question I guess I over thought the question. But I need an explanation to prove myself correct.

"within first few weeks" is one action and "discovered" is another action. Shouldn't past perfect be used here? In other words, why E isn't right?

"Within first few weeks" is not a point of time - past perfect would be appropriate, if the sentence were something as follows:
By the end of the month, the new teacher had discovered.....

Moreover the verb "was" is wrong - it should be plural: there WERE limited parental involvement AND an abundance of administrative hassle.

Therefore E is wrong.


Sir why cant the answer be C.
I agree that B is correct but not convinced why C is wrong
Show more

Difficult to eliminate C - the best I can reason is (though not very convincing):

In C it is not clear where the teacher discovered those two things. In B however the idea is better conveyed since option B states "there", which refers to "school".

As I already mentioned, this is not a very solid reasoning, and in my opinion this question does not seem to be very GMAT-like.
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Within the first few weeks of school, the new teacher discovered that 10 May 2023, 01:07
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