The company announced that its...

[Mymisc]

The company announced that its profits declined much less in the second quarter than analysts had
expected it to and its business will improve in the second half of the year.

A) had expected it to and its business will improve
B )had expected and that its business would improve
C )expected it would and that it will improve its business
D )expected them to and its business would improve
E) expected and that it will have improved its business

This is from GMATPrep

Would you please explain whether each of these following is acceptable, or what went wrong in each them: "had expected it to" in (A) -- it refers to the company, "expected it would" in (C), "expected them to" in (C) -- them refers to profits, "expected" in (E)

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

The company announced that its profits declined much less in the second quarter than analysts had
expected it to and its business will improve in the second half of the year.

A) had expected it to and its business will improve
B )had expected and that its business would improve
C )expected it would and that it will improve its business
D )expected them to and its business would improve
E) expected and that it will have improved its business

This is from GMATPrep

Would you please explain whether each of these following is acceptable, or what went wrong in each them: "had expected it to" in (A) -- it refers to the company, "expected it would" in (C), "expected them to" in (C) -- them refers to profits, "expected" in (E)

Thanks!

the only one of those pronouns that's incorrect is the "it" in choice (c).
in that choice, the context of the pronoun clearly refers to the company's profits; however, "profits" is plural, while "it" is singular.

the problem in the other three choices involves verb tense; the verb "expected" is illogically in parallel with the verb "declined".
this situation is illogical because the parallelism doesn't make sense; we are talking about expectations that were in place prior to the decline in profits, and which ceased to be relevant upon that decline.
this situation -- a state that is ongoing only until another past event, and which is directly related to that past event -- is precisely the kind of situation that requires the past perfect tense, so the sentence should contain "had expected", as in the first two choices.

[Viswanathan.harsha]

I thought the "it" in choice A refers to the profits, hence being incorrect. Is this correct? I don't understand how "it" is referring to the company.

[RonPurewal]

I thought the "it" in choice A refers to the profits, hence being incorrect. Is this correct? I don't understand how "it" is referring to the company.

"profits" is a plural noun; "it" is singular, and so couldn't refer to that noun.

--

also, make sure you know that pronoun ambiguity, even if it were there (it's not, in this problem), isn't a fatal error. see here:
post40400.html#p40400

[agha79]

is OA "B" for this problem.

[jnelson0612]

is OA "B" for this problem.

correct.

[vm87]

This question is also part of the OG 10th edition. One of the reasons given for D being wrong is that it fails to maintain paralellism.

Isn't the structure in D "announced that X and Y", where X and Y are parallel, ok? Is it necessary for parallelism that sentence should be of the form announced that X and that Y? Please explain.

[tim]

Strictly speaking, the parallelism is fine on this one. However, the meaning is made a little less ambiguous by including a second "that", so it is certainly preferable to include it. That does not make D wrong, but all other things being equal you would go with an answer that included a second "that"..

[aps_asks]

Hi Instructors ,
Is would used in the answer choice B ) is it is the past tense of will and parallel to profits declined ?

[ven2]

Hello instructors

Please I need help with the WOULD and WILL part

some refer Would as the past tense of will

how can I say

I would have gone to work if they paid me more money

would - is cnditional - unreal conditions but how does refer to the past

and does WILL always mean future only
or am I missing something

Thanks

[shuba]

Could anyone explain why B is chosen over E? Thanks.

[agarwalmanoj2000]

Could anyone explain why B is chosen over E? Thanks.

Problems in option E -
1) "Would" should be used in place of "will", because we are referring to future in past tense.
2) "that its profits" in the non underlined is NOT parallel to "that it will have improved"
3) It sounds awkward.


All the above problems does not exist in correct choice b.

HTH

[RonPurewal]

manoj, thanks.

however, note that you should stay away from using "awkwardness" as any sort of criterion here, unless you satisfy both the following criteria: (a) english is your first language, (b) you have extensive experience with the formal written language. if these criteria are not met, then "awkwardness" is something that will basically be impossible to judge on any sort of consistent basis.

[shuba]

Thanks Manoj! absolutely clear now.

[tim]

glad to hear it!