The computer company reported

[poonamchiK]

The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street's estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

(A) The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street's estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

(B) The report of the computer company showed strong second-quarter earnings, surpassing Wall Street's estimates, and they announced the first in a series of price cuts that they intend to increase sales further.

(C) Surpassing Wall Street's estimates, the report of the computer company showed strong second-quarter earnings, and, for the purpose of increasing sales further, they announced the first in a series of price cuts.

(D) The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing the first in a series of price cuts for the purpose of increasing sales further that surpass Wall Street's estimates.

(E) The computer company, surpassing Wall Street's estimates, reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing that to increase sales further, there would be the first in a series of price cuts.

OA : A .

I took a while to crack this one. bt was very confused b/w A, E and C.
Pls can some1 help me to shorten my time on this question with pointers to see?

Best
Poonam
(Iv posted this question bcus i couldnt find this prblem online).

[RonPurewal]

(A) The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street's estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

this is the correct answer.

note:

CORRECT MEANING -- the modifier "that surpassed wall street's estimates" is correctly attached to the noun "earnings"; this situation is required because it was the earnings that surpassed wall street's estimates. also, the modifier "intended to increase sales further" correctly applies to the price cuts.

CORRECT PARALLELISM -- the verbs "reported" and "announced" are in parallel, as they should be.

(C) Surpassing Wall Street's estimates, the report of the computer company showed strong second-quarter earnings, and, for the purpose of increasing sales further, they announced the first in a series of price cuts.

* the modifier "surpassing wall street's estimates" incorrectly applies to the report; the implication is that the report itself surpassed wall street's estimates. this doesn't make sense.

* the modifier "for the purpose of increasing sales further" seems to apply to the action of announcing the price cuts. this is incorrect; this modifier should apply to the price cuts themselves.

* "they" doesn't refer to anyone in particular, since the computer company is singular.

(E) The computer company, surpassing Wall Street's estimates, reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing that to increase sales further, there would be the first in a series of price cuts.

* the modifier "surpassing wall street's estimates" seems to apply to the computer company itself; this doesn't make sense.

* the connector "while" doesn't make sense. there are two possible meanings of "while": (1) contrast, or (2) simultaneity. neither of these interpretations makes any sense in the case at hand.

* the modifier "to increase sales further" has a comma on only one side. this isn't allowed; a modifier must be blocked off by commas either on both sides or on neither side.

* the phrasing "there would be ..." is rather strange; it seems to imply that these price cuts are just going to come into existence spontaneously, without any sort of effort on the part of the computer company.

[poonamchiK]

Now its much much cleares Ron in terms of what i need to be seeing.
Thx for your time.

Best
Poonam

[RonPurewal]

Now its much much cleares Ron in terms of what i need to be seeing.
Thx for your time.

Best
Poonam

sure thing

[lala.b]

Could u please explain me one thing-
dont we need the pronoun It before the word "announced..."? dont u think that the verb announced could be linked to the earnings? (earnings that surpassed and announced)I mean grammatically it sounds ok.Of course, then the meaning is ridiculous, since earnings cant announce anything, but still dont u think we need the pronoun just to make a clear link between the verb "announced" and the noun "company"?

P.S. I dont dispute the official answer. I just want to clarify to myself why we dont need the pronoun IT? is that just only because of the meaning of the sentence?

[amit1234]

what is wrong in D?
is usage of 'while' with ING modifier is wrong here and usage of 'and' is expected?

[tim]

Could u please explain me one thing-
dont we need the pronoun It before the word "announced..."? dont u think that the verb announced could be linked to the earnings? (earnings that surpassed and announced)I mean grammatically it sounds ok.Of course, then the meaning is ridiculous, since earnings cant announce anything, but still dont u think we need the pronoun just to make a clear link between the verb "announced" and the noun "company"?

P.S. I dont dispute the official answer. I just want to clarify to myself why we dont need the pronoun IT? is that just only because of the meaning of the sentence?

If the sentence is clear without the pronoun, then there is no need to include it. As long as there is a correct way to interpret the parallelism here, we won't eliminate the answer choice..

[tim]

what is wrong in D?
is usage of 'while' with ING modifier is wrong here and usage of 'and' is expected?

there are other problems with D, but one of them is definitely the use of "while" after a comma. without the comma though, the "while" structure would be a fine substitution for an "and" structure..

[jp.jprasanna]

Deleted.

[tim]

good to know..

[eggpain24]

HI，Ron

why “while” in choice D is problematic？

I don't think “while”（showing simultaneous action）is wrong here

is it wrong for potential ambiguity （because there are two uses of it）

OR

reported and announced → sequential action joint by “and”（much preferable than “while”)

thanks for your help！

[gmatkiller_24]

HI，Ron

why “while” in choice D is problematic？

I don't think “while”（showing simultaneous action）is wrong here

is it wrong for potential ambiguity （because there are two uses of it）

OR

reported and announced → sequential action joint by “and”（much preferable than “while”)

thanks for your help！

same doubt here - -

Please clarify~ Thanks

[tim]

As I mentioned earlier, the "while" is a problem because of the comma. Get rid of the comma and the "while" is fine.

[RonPurewal]

'while' is nonsense here, regardless of punctuation. it's not possible to report earnings WHILE announcing a planned price cut—these would be two completely separate announcements!

('while' should always be used to connect two things that happen / are true in the same timeframe. this is true regardless of whether a contrast is present.)

[tim]

I'm going to disagree with Ron here, because I feel if a company issues a press release that addresses both issues, they can be considered to be announcing both things simultaneously. What's important here though is that our disagreement has nothing to do with how to solve this question. Ron and I agree on what is actually relevant, and that is the fact that "while" is not used correctly here.