![\"Manhattan](\"\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/01\/2-7-17-blog-1.png\")
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Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re a non-native English speaker, you know that you\u2019ll need to be extra careful with idioms and other constructions that native speakers just \u201cknow.\u201d If you\u2019re a native speaker, though, don\u2019t think that you have a huge advantage! The GMAT test writers know the kinds of common errors that have crept into spoken language, and they\u2019re going to try to trap you, too!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> if you\u2019re interested, take a look at our <\/span>recommended Sentence Correction Process<\/span><\/a> before you try the SC problem below.<\/span><\/p>\n All right, are you ready? This SC problem is from the free GMATPrep\u00ae practice problem set. When you\u2019re done, we\u2019ll talk about how to spot the GMAT traps and get these questions right!<\/span><\/p>\n * \u201cIf the proposed expenditures for gathering information abroad are reduced even further, international news reports <\/span>have been and will continue to diminish<\/span> in number and quality.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(A) have been and will continue to diminish The First Glance showed a significant difference: <\/span>have<\/span><\/i> vs. <\/span>will<\/span><\/i>. Something\u2019s going on with verb tense here\u2014and that means something is going on with meaning in general, since verb tense is really all about conveying the proper meaning. <\/span>When<\/span><\/i> do these actions take place?<\/span><\/p>\n Next, I read the original sentence and it sounded okay to me. So I dove into the grammar a little more carefully. The underlined portion contains an <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> and I know what that means: parallelism. So what needs to be parallel here?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201creports <\/span>have been<\/span><\/i> and<\/b> will continue<\/span><\/i> to diminish\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n So far, so good. We\u2019ve got two verbs. It\u2019s fine to make two verbs of different tenses parallel.<\/span><\/p>\n There is one problem, though. The parallel portions each have to create their own independent sentence. Consider these examples:<\/span><\/p>\n (1) Stan is studying and will call you back later. (Correct) What\u2019s wrong with that third one?<\/span><\/p>\n (1) Stan is studying. Stan will call you back later. Whoops. When I try to split the two parallel parts into separate sentences, my third example doesn\u2019t work. I can\u2019t say \u201cStan has been study.\u201d It should be \u201cStan has been studying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Go back to answer (A) of the problem we did.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201creports <\/span>have been<\/span><\/i> and<\/b> will continue<\/span><\/i> to diminish\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Reports have been\u2026diminish? Reports have been to diminish? No. It should really say <\/span>reports have been diminishing<\/span><\/i>, but the word <\/span>diminishing<\/span><\/i> is not in the sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n So the parallelism fails in the original sentence; eliminate choice (A). <\/span><\/p>\n Answer (B) has a similar problem. It should say <\/span>have diminished<\/span><\/i> or <\/span>have continued to diminish<\/span><\/i>. It\u2019s not correct to say <\/span>have diminish<\/span><\/i> or <\/span>have continue to diminish<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n The other three choices all begin with <\/span>will diminish<\/span><\/i>, completely knocking out the <\/span>have<\/span><\/i> part. But\u2026interesting. Choices (C) and (D) both add another tense afterward, but choice (E) does not. It just says <\/span>will continue to diminish<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Stop for a second. What\u2019s the difference in meaning between saying something <\/span>has diminished<\/span><\/i> and something <\/span>will diminish<\/span><\/i>? Timeframe, of course. <\/span>Has diminished<\/span><\/i> has already started and it\u2019s still true or still going on in the present. <\/span>Will diminish<\/span><\/i> will take place in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n But wait\u2014what\u2019s the difference in meaning between <\/span>will diminish<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>will continue to diminish<\/span><\/i>? <\/span>Will diminish<\/span><\/i> is pure future, but <\/span>will continue to diminish<\/span><\/i> means that this thing already started to diminish and it\u2019s going to continue to diminish in the future. <\/span><\/p>\n In other words: <\/span>will continue to diminish<\/span><\/i> encompasses the full meaning of <\/span>has diminished <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>will diminish<\/span><\/i>! It already started and it will keep going.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s redundant to say both; you only need to say <\/span>will continue to<\/span><\/i>. Cross off answers (A), (B), (C), and (D) for redundant meaning!<\/span><\/p>\n The correct answer is (E).<\/strong><\/p>\n Question for you: Did you cross off (E)\u2014or consider crossing it off\u2014because you felt that it was missing something? How come it just dropped that other tense, the one that all of the other choices had?<\/span><\/p>\n If so, here\u2019s where you need to retrain your ear. First, just because something was in the original sentence does not mean that the correct answer has to retain that thing. (This is especially true when that thing is redundant or illogical or ambiguous\u2014there\u2019s actually something not-good about it. But it <\/span>could<\/span><\/i> be the case that the correct answer does drop some perfectly fine meaning from the original sentence. This doesn\u2019t happen often, but it does happen. If the other four answers are all wrong, then this one is the right one, even if the meaning has changed a bit.)<\/span><\/p>\n So first, instead of immediately being suspicious of (E) just because it changes something, take a step back and ask yourself: what\u2019s the actual <\/span>meaning<\/span><\/i> that\u2019s going on in this sentence? Specifically: Is there anything redundant or illogical or ambiguous about any of these constructions? What does it mean to drop the other verb and only use <\/span>will continue<\/span><\/i>?<\/span><\/p>\n In this case, <\/span>will continue<\/span><\/i> by definition means \u201cstarted in the past and continuing into the future,\u201d so there\u2019s no need to repeat part of that meaning with another verb somewhere else. If you spot that trap, you can cross off all four wrong answers!<\/span><\/p>\n Want more? Keep an eye out for the second part of this series!<\/span><\/p>\n (1) Sometimes, you need to back away from the screen a little bit and think about the overall meaning of a sentence or part of a sentence. Don\u2019t be so focused on micro-portions that you lose sight of the big picture.<\/span><\/p>\n (2) Don\u2019t cross something off just because it changes (or appears to change) the meaning from whatever the original sentence said. Instead, look specifically for three things: redundant meaning, illogical meaning, or ambiguous meaning. (That last one is the hardest, by the way\u2014that\u2019s why I put it last.)<\/span><\/p>\n (3) As you get better with the above, it\u2019s really important to be able to find the core sentence. Want more practice with that skill? <\/span>Check out this series<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n * GMATPrep\u00ae questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.<\/span><\/p>\n Can\u2019t get enough of Stacey\u2019s GMAT mastery? Attend the first session of one of her upcoming GMAT courses<\/a> absolutely free, no strings attached. Seriously.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding! Check out our upcoming courses here. If you\u2019re a non-native English speaker, you know that you\u2019ll need to be extra careful with idioms and other constructions that native speakers just \u201cknow.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,929,874,52871,930,2,26,10],"tags":[52969,52970],"yst_prominent_words":[53868,54457,54455,54452,54040,53779,54453,53781,53775,54456,54454,54462,54458,54460,53674,53669,54459,53784,53867,54461],"class_list":["post-12924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-current-studiers","category-gmat-prep","category-gmat-resources","category-gmat-strategies","category-gmat-study-guide","category-how-to-study","category-sentence-correction","category-verbal-on-gmat","tag-gmat-sentence-correction-traps","tag-spot-the-trap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12924"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16981,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12924\/revisions\/16981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12924"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n<\/span>\u201c(B) have and will continue to diminish
\n<\/span>\u201c(C) will continue to diminish, as they already did,
\n<\/span>\u201c(D) will continue to diminish, as they have already,
\n<\/span>\u201c(E) will continue to diminish\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>(2) Stan was and is studying. (Correct\u2014though kind of clunky)
\n<\/span>(3) Stan has been and will study. (Incorrect)<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>(2) Stan was studying. Stan is studying.
\n<\/span>(3) Stan has been study. (???) Stan will study.<\/span><\/p>\nKey Takeaways for Redundancy in Sentence Correction<\/b><\/h4>\n
Move on to Part 2 of “Spot the Trap!” here.<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n
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\n![\"stacey-koprince\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/stacey-koprince-150x150.png\")
<\/a>Stacey Koprince<\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California.<\/strong> Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT \u00a0for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests. Check out Stacey\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"