Health Care Company

[goelmohit2002]

Source GMAT-Prep. Can someone please tell why E is better than C ?

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After several years of rapid growth, the healthy care company became one of the largest health care providers in the metropolitan area, while it then proved unable to handle the increase in business, falling months behind in its payment to doctors and hospitals.

A. while it then proved unable to handle the increase in business, falling months behind in its payment to
B. while it then proved unable to handle the increase in business and fell months behind in its payment to
C. but then it proved unable to handle the increase in business, falling months behind in its paying
D. but then proving unable to handle the increase in business, falling months behind in paying
E. but then proved unable to handle the increase in business, falling months behind in paying

[cfaking]

good Q

i believe its the referrent issue with "it"
it-->metropolitan area or the Company?

[goelmohit2002]

good Q

i believe its the referrent issue with "it"
it-->metropolitan area or the Company?

IMO as the Manhattan SC guide Says, the it(subject of while clause) will refer to the subject of previous clause...which is health care company...

thus its should refer to the Health care company unambiguously...

Please tell if there are any gaps in my understanding....

So I think there is some other issue to kick out C.....

[chuckberry007]

The "it" here is not clear as mentioned by cfaking. Pronoun should be properly refered back to its antecedent . Even there is a proper antecedent, "behind in its paying" sounds awkard.

[RonPurewal]

is this seriously a gmat prep problem? as in, you've seen it firsthand on the software?

all of the answers here are ugly.
the ones starting with "while" are ugly, because that doesn't idiomatically capture the time sequence of the events mentioned in the passage.

but "paying TO doctors and hospitals" isn't a correct idiom in this context, either; it should just be "paying doctors and hospitals".
although "in its payment to..." is better formal writing.

in any case ... ugh.
mohit, is this really a gmatprep problem?
if so, which answer is the OA?
whichever one it is, we're going to learn something hideous about the gmat's accepted idioms.

[goelmohit2002]

is this seriously a gmat prep problem? as in, you've seen it firsthand on the software?

all of the answers here are ugly.
the ones starting with "while" are ugly, because that doesn't idiomatically capture the time sequence of the events mentioned in the passage.

but "paying TO doctors and hospitals" isn't a correct idiom in this context, either; it should just be "paying doctors and hospitals".
although "in its payment to..." is better formal writing.

in any case ... ugh.
mohit, is this really a gmatprep problem?
if so, which answer is the OA?
whichever one it is, we're going to learn something hideous about the gmat's accepted idioms.

Hi Ron,

Yes, this is a GPrep Question..OA = E....not sure though why ...E is better then C...

Thanks
Mohit

[RonPurewal]

Yes, this is a GPrep Question..OA = E....not sure though why ...E is better then C...

Thanks
Mohit

ugh.

the only difference between (c) and (e) is the two pronouns, "it" and "its". these pronouns are present in (c), but not in (e).

BOTH of them are completely superfluous / unnecessary.

* "the health care company" is already the subject of the first clause, so there is no need for the pronoun "it" on the second verb.
(this is the same reason you should just say sam washed his clothes and cleaned his room, not sam washed his clothes and he cleaned his room.)

* it is correct to just say "in VERBing", as long as the subject of VERBing is the same as the subject of the preceding clause. so, "in paying" is ok; you don't need "its".
i have a creeping suspicion that there's also an idiom error here, but i won't say for 100% sure.

i still don't like "paying to..." at the end; normally you should use a direct object with "paying".

[kevinmarmstrong]

Note that 'to' should be underlined in the original sentence!

[goelmohit2002]

Note that 'to' should be underlined in the original sentence!

Thanks for pointing this out....I fixed this issue by editing the original post.

[goelmohit2002]

Yes, this is a GPrep Question..OA = E....not sure though why ...E is better then C...

Thanks
Mohit

ugh.

the only difference between (c) and (e) is the two pronouns, "it" and "its". these pronouns are present in (c), but not in (e).

BOTH of them are completely superfluous / unnecessary.

* "the health care company" is already the subject of the first clause, so there is no need for the pronoun "it" on the second verb.
(this is the same reason you should just say sam washed his clothes and cleaned his room, not sam washed his clothes and he cleaned his room.)

* it is correct to just say "in VERBing", as long as the subject of VERBing is the same as the subject of the preceding clause. so, "in paying" is ok; you don't need "its".
i have a creeping suspicion that there's also an idiom error here, but i won't say for 100% sure.

i still don't like "paying to..." at the end; normally you should use a direct object with "paying".

Hi Ron,

Thanks

But there are couple of examples in Manhattan SC guide...where it says that when second clause has "it"....then the it refers to subject of previous clause...

Can you please tell why the same is not the case here.....why "it" is redundant here and not redundant in the examples given in Manhattan SC guide.

Thanks
Mohit

[goelmohit2002]

Yes, this is a GPrep Question..OA = E....not sure though why ...E is better then C...

Thanks
Mohit

ugh.

the only difference between (c) and (e) is the two pronouns, "it" and "its". these pronouns are present in (c), but not in (e).

BOTH of them are completely superfluous / unnecessary.

* "the health care company" is already the subject of the first clause, so there is no need for the pronoun "it" on the second verb.
(this is the same reason you should just say sam washed his clothes and cleaned his room, not sam washed his clothes and he cleaned his room.)

* it is correct to just say "in VERBing", as long as the subject of VERBing is the same as the subject of the preceding clause. so, "in paying" is ok; you don't need "its".
i have a creeping suspicion that there's also an idiom error here, but i won't say for 100% sure.

i still don't like "paying to..." at the end; normally you should use a direct object with "paying".

Hi Ron,

I guess here paying is acting like gerund....

As per Stacey as far as I remember she once told that possessive + gerund is considered awkward by GMAT....can this be the reason to kick out the option C ?

Please refer to Stacey's thoughts on this possessive + gerund issue on the following thread please:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/ing-modifier ... 43-45.html

Thanks
Mohit

[nehag84]

Not sure if this is the correct reasoning but this is what I would do:

A) Out because it starts with "while"...doesn't show the contrast in the 2 stages of the company
B) Out because of teh same reason as A
C) Not parallel with the non - underlined portion of the sentence --- "the health care company became....it proved" - "It" breaks the parallelism here...should be just "proved...."
D) "Proving" is again not parallel with "became".
E) Maintains parallelism..is the best choice out of the five...

Regards,
NG

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

I guess here paying is acting like gerund....

As per Stacey as far as I remember she once told that possessive + gerund is considered awkward by GMAT....can this be the reason to kick out the option C ?

Please refer to Stacey's thoughts on this possessive + gerund issue on the following thread please:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/ing-modifier ... 43-45.html

Thanks
Mohit

hmm.

well, the first thing you should know is that possessive + gerund is not actually wrong. it's like "being" - it's awkward and inferior in MOST cases, but it would be irresponsible of us to write it off altogether.
just as "being" is correct in a few select problems, it is entirely possible that this construction may also be correct a small minority of the time.

in this case, SINCE IT'S IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO A MORE CONCISE CONSTRUCTION, we can safely eliminate it according to this criterion.
but don't go around assuming that you can automatically eliminate such constructions; first, make sure that there's something better in one of the other choices.

[RonPurewal]

C) Not parallel with the non - underlined portion of the sentence --- "the health care company became....it proved" - "It" breaks the parallelism here...should be just "proved...."

this is incorrect. "it" does NOT break parallelism here. if you don't understand this, see here:
post25465.html#p25465

if anything, the issue is simply that we don't need the second "it". the sentence is fine without it, so it's wordy and therefore inferior to the other version.

[chenche8827]

Dear instructor

I have a second thought about c. when we add a comma before a connecting word such as "but",we should make sure that the sentence after "but"is a whole sentence;otherwise we should omit the comma. in this case,there is a comma before "but" so if we omit the same subject of the sentence,then we need eliminate the comma.Just like Ron's example:Sam washed his cloths and clean his room. here we can omit the same subject he or sam because there is no comma before and.However,In E,C this is not the case,we got a comma here.I am really confused,and I chose C just because of this reason.So please help me.