The United States will be affected by whether Taiwan develop

[rschunti]

The United States will be affected by whether Taiwan develops a closer relationship with mainland China or preserves the status quo, since the island nation is the United States’ seventh-largest trading partner.
A. The United States will be affected by whether Taiwan develops a closer relationship with mainland China or preserves the status quo
B. Whether or not Taiwan develops a closer relationship with mainland China or preserves the status quo affecting the United States
C. Whether or not Taiwan develops a closer relationship with mainland China or the status quo is preserved, it will affect the United States
D. It affects the United States whether Taiwan will develop a closer relationship with mainland China or preserves the status quo
E. It affects the United States whether or not Taiwan will develop a closer relationship with mainland China or preserve the status quo
This is GMATPREP question. What all errors are there in choice "B". Why choice "A" is correct?

[RonPurewal]

first thing to note is that the underlined part must be a complete sentence in its own right, because the non-underlined part is a subordinate clause.

A. The United States will be affected by whether Taiwan develops a closer relationship with mainland China or preserves the status quo

- complete sentence: check
- 'whether' (instead of the redundant form 'whether or not'): check
- proper parallelism: check

B. Whether or not Taiwan develops a closer relationship with mainland China or preserves the status quo affecting the United States

- sentence fragment (there's no main subject, and/or no main verb: the whole thing is one big whether X or Y construction, which can't stand alone as a sentence)
- 'whether or not' is wordy (yes, that's enough to kill this answer choice all by itself)
- change in meaning: the way this is written, it's the status quo that is affecting the U.S., whereas the sentence is supposed to say that the decision (whether Taiwan will do blah blah blah) is what will affect the U.S.

[rschunti]

Thanks a lot Ron. Good explanation.

[dr_o]

Is there grammar error with D?
If not, what makes it less good as A?

[RonPurewal]

Is there grammar error with D?

at least two.
1 the pronoun 'it' doesn't have an antecedent. there are certain idiomatic constructions in which a standalone 'it' is allowed (such as 'make it difficult to...'), but this isn't one of them.
2 bad parallelism: 'will develop' is in the future tense, but 'preserves' is in the present tense. as they are alternatives in a decision, these must be presented in the same tense.

If not, what makes it less good as A?

just so you know, you have to use than (not 'as') with less (the gmat loooooooves that distinction, so know it!).
also, you can't say 'less good' in formal written english (the correct word is 'worse').

[gmat blows]

1 the pronoun 'it' doesn't have an antecedent. there are certain idiomatic constructions in which a standalone 'it' is allowed (such as 'make it difficult to...'), but this isn't one of them.

I was wondering what other idiomatic constructions allow the 'it'.

thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

There are a lot. The easiest way to tell is to ask yourself what the "it" SHOULD be referring to. If there isn't anything, then you don't need the antecedent.

eg: it's raining outside.
What could or should that be referring to? Nothing.

eg: When the bowl fell to the floor, it broke into a million pieces.
What could or should that be referring to? The bowl - an actual thing.

[jibanezd]

As per my understanding, in a whether X or Y construction, X and Y must be parallel.
However, in A (OA), X is a Noun (Taiwan), and Y is a Verb (preserves.

Ron, how can that be possible?

Many thanks in advance.

[jnelson0612]

As per my understanding, in a whether X or Y construction, X and Y must be parallel.
However, in A (OA), X is a Noun (Taiwan), and Y is a Verb (preserves.

Ron, how can that be possible?

Many thanks in advance.

Look at A again. It's actually "whether Taiwan develops . . . or preserves . . . .

Thus, the parallelism is correct as there are two present tense verbs serving as "X" and "Y" in the "whether X or Y" construction.

[jibanezd]

As per my understanding, in a whether X or Y construction, X and Y must be parallel.
However, in A (OA), X is a Noun (Taiwan), and Y is a Verb (preserves.

Ron, how can that be possible?

Many thanks in advance.

Look at A again. It's actually "whether Taiwan develops . . . or preserves . . . .

Thus, the parallelism is correct as there are two present tense verbs serving as "X" and "Y" in the "whether X or Y" construction.

mmm...I thought that in a whether X or Y construction, X was the word immediatley following the word "whether" and Y the word immediately following the word "or".

whether Taiwan develops or preserves

Could you please clarify?
Many thanks in advance.

[tim]

there are two ways to use "whether", and the meaning of the sentence will dictate what the acceptable uses are. if we want to know whether Taiwan will do something (in this case that something is X or Y), the parallel marker is just "or" and the "whether" applies to the entire phrase with the parallelism inside it. in this case it does not matter where the parallel element on the left starts..

on the other hand, if Taiwan has a choice between two options (X or Y) and we are not sure which it will do, then the "whether" forms part of the parallel marker together with "or". in this case, the word after "whether" must match the word after "or"..

from a geopolitical perspective, i disagree with the way this sentence is presented and think there should be a "Taiwan" after the "or" to make the sentence conform to the second scenario i listed above. however, you are not supposed to bring outside knowledge of international relations into the problem. the bottom line is, if you are unsure of the intended meaning from within the context of the sentence, don't eliminate an answer choice that could be correct under one of these interpretations. the other thing to consider is that if you're unsure of which interpretation to use, you may want to address a different issue in the problem. all the other answer choices are clearly wrong for other reasons, so we are stuck with A and the resulting interpretation that flows from it having been written the way it was..

[pjain01]

isn't "it" in Option D can be considered a demonstrative pronoun ?

[tim]

Is that relevant? Remember, SC on the GMAT has *nothing* to do with knowing grammar terms and *everything* to do with recognizing when grammar errors are being made..

[mcmebk]

Is there grammar error with D?

at least two.
1 the pronoun 'it' doesn't have an antecedent. there are certain idiomatic constructions in which a standalone 'it' is allowed (such as 'make it difficult to...'), but this isn't one of them.
2 bad parallelism: 'will develop' is in the future tense, but 'preserves' is in the present tense. as they are alternatives in a decision, these must be presented in the same tense.

If not, what makes it less good as A?

just so you know, you have to use than (not 'as') with less (the gmat loooooooves that distinction, so know it!).
also, you can't say 'less good' in formal written english (the correct word is 'worse').

Hi Ron, could you please clarify three of my doubts on this question?

1. Could you please let us know in what structures "it" does not require an antecedent?
I can think of two:
* It is a bad habit to sleep late;
* It is through Joe's legal office that Tom sued his business partner.
I thought in this structure:
It affects the US whether... belongs to one of these structures. No?

2. The parallel structure in D, can it be read as "It affects the United States whether Taiwan will develop a closer relationship with mainland China or (will - understood) preserves the status quo?
i.e: I will go to work tomorrow morning and come back in the night. You don't have to say will come back in the night, am I correct here?

3. In the correct option A: I thought the meaning was a little strange, it seems to imply that The united stages will be affected in the future, but they would stay unaffected for the time being if the situation described in the "whether..." part happens. Also I am a little confused about the shift of the tense:

Do you say:
I will finish my work whether Tom helps me or not;
or Do you say:
I will finish my work whether Tom will help me or not.

Thank you Ron for answering all the posts.

[jlucero]

Hi Ron, could you please clarify three of my doubts on this question?

1. Could you please let us know in what structures "it" does not require an antecedent?
I can think of two:
* It is a bad habit to sleep late;
* It is through Joe's legal office that Tom sued his business partner.
I thought in this structure:
It affects the US whether... belongs to one of these structures. No?

2. The parallel structure in D, can it be read as "It affects the United States whether Taiwan will develop a closer relationship with mainland China or (will - understood) preserves the status quo?
i.e: I will go to work tomorrow morning and come back in the night. You don't have to say will come back in the night, am I correct here?

3. In the correct option A: I thought the meaning was a little strange, it seems to imply that The united stages will be affected in the future, but they would stay unaffected for the time being if the situation described in the "whether..." part happens. Also I am a little confused about the shift of the tense:

Do you say:
I will finish my work whether Tom helps me or not;
or Do you say:
I will finish my work whether Tom will help me or not.

Thank you Ron for answering all the posts.

1. Yes, any of those work, because you are using a dummy pronoun (that's literally what it's called, but you get no bonus points for knowing that on test day)

2. You don't always have to repeat helper verbs, but notice that "will develop and will preserves" are not parallel.

3. Both examples are correct, and since it's in the correct answer, spend zero time figuring out IF it could work and all your time figuring out WHY it works. In this case, you can say that you will do something tomorrow whether Tom is helping you today or in the future. There is a different meaning, but both meanings could be logical. In this case, the US will be affected in the future by what Taiwan begins to do right now.