Question from Reader – Sentence Correction | GMAT Prep

[quote="sungoal"]India, like Italy and China, has no single dominant cuisine: Indian food comprises many different styles of cooking, [u]with each a product of their[/u] regional influences, from the fiery vegetarian dishes of the south to the Portuguese-influenced Goan cooking of the west, to the more familiar Mogul food of the north.

a) with each a product of their
b) with each as a product of its
c) each products of their
d) each a product of
e) each products of

Source: Official GMAT Paper Test Question

Experts please explain, why option B is wrong? Why is it wrong “with each as a product” to modify “styles of cooking” ?

Why the pronoun “its” is incorrect in option B. Isn’t this pronoun referring to “each” ?

Experts please help, I am really confused. [/quote]

I surprisingly arrived at (D) in less than 10 seconds. Here’s how:

Step 1) I recognize this sentence structure–they’re trying to describe the many different styles – but you want to describe them individually in a certain way. So I knew you have to use the word “each” in the beginning. That narrows it to (C), (D), and (E).

Step 2) When you say “each” – it’s singular so whatever follows must be the SINGULAR form – even though the overall context of what we’re talking about is plural (styles). Recognizing this potential trap and knowing what the answer should be, I was able to identify (D) as the only answer choice that as the SINGULAR form of “product”

Step 3) Choose (D) confidently and move on.

Hope that helps.

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Quick Math Question

Hi GMATPill,

I am a few days away from my exam and I wanted to reach out and ask you a question that I saw on my recent practice test. The question is as follows:

A certain city with a population of 132,000 is to be divided into 11 voting districts, and no district is to have a population that is more than 10 percent greater than the population of any other district What is the minimum possible population that the least populated district could have?

A. 10,700
B. 10,800
C. 10,900
D. 11,000
E. 11,100

When I saw this I completely froze. Even after looking at this question with some time on my side, I don’t even know where to begin. Can you walk me through how you would attack this problem?
Thanks for your help.

Best regards,

James

——————–

Hi James,

If you want to minimize the possible population for 1 specific district, then the other 10 must be at the maximum–which is 10% more than that single minimum.

Let x = that 1 district. The other districts must be 10% greater.

So
x + (1.1)*10*x = 132,000

x+11x = 132,000
12x=132,000
x=11,000

So the answer would be D.
Hope that helps.

GMAT Pill Support Team

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GMAT Prep | A Really Good Past-Present-Future Framework GMAT SC Question

Interest rates on mortgages have declined steadily during the first six months of this year but virtually remained unchanged during the next three months.
• (A) have declined steadily during the first six months of this year but virtually remained unchanged
• (B) declined steadily during the first six months of this year but virtually remain unchanged
• (C) steadily declined during the first six months of this year but remain virtually unchanged
• (D) declined steadily during the first six months of this but have remained virtually unchanging’
• (E) declined steadily during the first six months of this year but have remained virtually unchanged

OA is E. Very interesting question. Here’s how I’m thinking through it:

Step 1) I read “Interest rates on mortgages have declined steadily during the first six months of this year”

So far looks ok. I take a quick look at the answer choices and see that they are testing me on “have declined” Vs “declined steadily” VS “steadily declined”

Well, (A) shows “have declined during the first six months”–this implies that this declining started in the beginning of the year (in the past) and continues to the present–which presumably would be now in month #6.

So looks ok so far.

Step 2) Then we keep reading: “but virtually remained unchanged during the next three months.”

“During the next three months” ???—wait a minute. It’s using a past tense “remained unchanged” when referencing something that happens for the next three months. Since we assumed the present was now in month #6, then the next three months would be month #7-9.

But they used past tense “remained unchanged” when referencing something that was really in the future (relative to month #6).

Something must be wrong!

If they’re going to word it like this–you’re going to need to get rid of the “have” in “have declined”–because this is conflicting with other clues in the sentence.

Step 3) “declined steadily” VS “steadily declined”
Well, one’s not that much better than the other..so let’s keep looking for other clues. We know we are now operating in the past tense since all remaining answer choices are in the past tense.

Step 4) “remain virtually unchanged” Vs “have remained virtually unchanged” when referencing the “next 3 months”

Since we know we are in the past tense–we cannot use “remain virtually unchanged”–this is actually present tense. The “-ed” in the word “unchanged” might lead some to believe that it’s past tense–but actually “unchanged” is used as an adjective—not a verb.

So we need to eliminate “remain virtually unchanged” as well as “virtually remain unchanged” in (B) and (C).

Step 5) Now it’s between (D) and (E).

“remained virtually unchanging” or “remained virtually unchanged”

This is an easy one. Clearly (D) doesn’t make sense–only (E) makes sense.

So choose (E) as your final answer and move on!

Hope that helps!

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