SC - Although the restaurant company...

[RonPurewal]

My query is how to know whether two trends have taken place simultaneously.

As in the case of most other meaning-related issues, it's mostly just common sense. If these things are presented together, the default interpretation should be that they're simultaneous (because that's why people would list them together in the first place!) -- unless there is some obvious reason to regard them as NOT simultaneous.

E.g.,
Although Tim went to school in Tokyo and has lived and worked there for the last thirty years, he is not fluent in Japanese.
--> "School" was over a long time ago. "Lived and worked" is ongoing up to now.

[RonPurewal]

If the sentence were "Although the restaurant company added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its xxxxxxxxxx.", then would it be right?

Extremely valuable piece of advice #1 -- Don't try to edit GMAC's sentences.
In my experience, at least 99% of attempted "edits" of GMAC sentences by forum users have issues. Worse, the vast majority of those issues are things the GMAT doesn't even test, forcing us to give awkward responses along the lines of "Well, no, but don't worry about it".

It's a good idea to make your own (MUCH SIMPLER) sentences, as illustrations of the principles you learn "” but leave GMAC's sentences alone. Learn from them. Don’t edit them.

We're almost certainly well beyond the bounds of what GMAC would ever test here, but, here goes.
If you had extra context that clarified the difference between the two timeframes, then you could have these different tenses.
E.g., Even though the restaurant company added many new restaurants across the country in the early 2000's and its sales have increased dramatically since then, ...
^^ That would be fine. But, again, the likelihood that you'll ever have to think about this on the test is something like 0.0000001%.

[RonPurewal]

OR is it necessary that events (whether taken place simultaneously or not) have always to be in the same tense to make a viable parallelism?

No.

My cousin joined the U.S. Air Force in 1989 and will be discharged next year.
--> To put these verbs in the same tense would be preposterous.

[bodhisattwabiswas]

thanks a lot for the precise and fundamental explanation...And now I realize that it is to some extent beyond the bounds of GMAT...thanks

[RonPurewal]

Sure.

[boncourage]

second, the gmat is rather inconsistent on the issue of pronoun ambiguity, as i've noted in several places. see here, for instance:
post35595.html#p35595
...so picking based on pronoun ambiguity is a VERY bad idea, unless you literally can't think of any other criterion on which to split.

third, we HAVE noticed the following trend: objects of prepositions are unlikely to be chosen as antecedents of pronouns, unless the pronoun itself is also the object of a preposition.
here, "country" is the object of the preposition "across", and so is much less likely to be considered the antecedent.

Hi, Ron
I find a common problem in the answers C, D, E.
in "with its sales", its refers to the company, but in the following, the company appears in the possesssive form.

so I think its does not have an antesedent.
do I get the point? thanks for your answer

[edited by Moderator on 4/9]
Not in this case. Since "its" is a possessive pronoun, it can refer to a possessive antecedent:
Although its sales have gone up, the company's profits have not.

Hi Instructors! I've understood the fatal mistakes in D and E (sales can't add new restaurants) and the shift of meaning in C (many new restaurants are opened by whom), but i'm quite confused abt. the usage of "its" in C, D, and E.

The answer choice A tells us, "its" refers to "the resaurant company". And in the first quotation about answer choice C, we couldn't find any eligible antecedent when looking in the sentence before "it": well, at least the word "antecedent" suggests that the noun being modified is located before the pronoun. So "its" is incorrect here if looked before.

But in the second citation above, which also makes perfect sense, its is OK because "its" is a possessive pronoun and thus could refer to "the restaurant company's". This time, "its" is correct if looked after.

I'm really confused about this point...I would be very grateful if instructors clarify, thank you.

[RonPurewal]

As long as you can find a legitimate antecedent, just treat the pronoun as correct.

Despite the "ante-", antecedents do not have to come before pronouns. Most often they do, but not always.

[boncourage]

As long as you can find a legitimate antecedent, just treat the pronoun as correct.

Despite the "ante-", antecedents do not have to come before pronouns. Most often they do, but not always.

Thanks, Ron! It's a question that has puzzled me for a while...
I'll keep what you said in mind.

Have a good weekend^^

[RonPurewal]

You too.

Don't make things complicated if they can be simple.

[rustom.hakimiyan]

Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its sales at restaurants open for more than a year have declined.

A) the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically

B) the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales increased dramatically, its

C) many new restaurants have recently been opened across the country and its sales increased dramatically, the restaurant company's

d) having recently added many new restaurants across the country and with its sales increasing dramatically, the restaurant company's

e) recently adding many new restaurants across the country and having its sales increase dramatically, the restaurant company's

Source : GMAT Prep Software
OA is A.
I chose B. Please explain ?

i'll assume that you are inquiring only about (a) vs. (b). if you need information about other choices, post back.

(b) contains bad parallelism. since you're talking about two trends that have taken place simultaneously, you MUST use the same verb tense to describe those trends.
in (b), the first verb (has ... added) is in the present perfect, but the second (increased) is in the simple past. i don't care whether you actually know what these tenses are called, provided that you can recognize that they are different.

the parallelism in (a) is perfect: both verbs (has ... added and have ... increased) are presented in the same tense.

Hi Ron,

A question regarding tenses:

A: "has recently added" and "have increased"
B: "has recently added" and "increased"

In A, I interpreted the sentence as -- company added restaurants and sales have increased. I was a little confused by the meaning -- does this mean that the action of adding restaurants and sales increasing is still relevant today? Company is still adding restaurants?

In B, I interpreted this as -- company added restaurants and those restaurant's sales increased by stopped increasing, and therefore, the sales at restaurants that were open for more than a year have declined. I almost saw this as a clear timeline of events. Isn't this what the sentence is implying?

I understand that there is a parallelism issue, which is what I used to tackle this problem, but i'd still like to understand the tense issue at hand.

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

In A, I interpreted the sentence as -- company added restaurants and sales have increased. I was a little confused by the meaning -- does this mean that the action of adding restaurants and sales increasing is still relevant today? Company is still adding restaurants?

relevant today, sure.
"has/have ___ed" does not distinguish whether the action is still ongoing. it may still be ongoing; it may have just stopped.

e.g.,
i have been sick for 5 days and am still showing no signs of recovery. (still ongoing)
i have been sick for 5 days, but now i'm starting to feel normal again. (just finished)

either way, no problem here.

[RonPurewal]

In B, I interpreted this as -- company added restaurants and those restaurant's sales increased by stopped increasing, and therefore, the sales at restaurants that were open for more than a year have declined. I almost saw this as a clear timeline of events. Isn't this what the sentence is implying?

the red thing is clearly some sort of glitch; unfortunately, because of it, i can't understand what you're trying to convey here. perhaps you could clarify.

blue thing:
"i almost saw this as a clear timeline" means that ... well ... you ultimately didn't see it as a clear timeline. ("i almost finished that race"... too bad you didn't make it the whole way)
so, it seems you may have answered this one yourself.

among other things, there's definitely not a clear timeline there.
for starters, you have a past-tense verb ("increased") with absolutely no time cues at all. it's clearly essential to have some sort of time cue there.

[YuweiZ819]

Hi!
Although Ron has said we need to focus on the initial modifier,I still have a quetion ——can we use V-ing \v-ed after 'although or though'?Because V-ing is not a whole sentence.
D. having recently added many new restaurants across the country and with its sales increasing dramatically, the restaurant company's
E. recently adding many new restaurants across the country and having its sales increase dramatically, the restaurant company's
Thanks ~

[RonPurewal]

can we use V-ing \v-ed after 'although or though'?

yes.