As U.S. nuclear attack submarines prowl their familiar haunts deep within the oceans of the world these days, they increasingly are engaged in missions far different from the tasks for which they were built and for which their crews were trained over the last forty years.
(A) they increasingly are engaged in missions far different from the tasks for which they were built
(B) the missions they increasingly engage in are far different than the tasks they were built for
(C) they engage increasingly in missions that differ significantly from the tasks they were built for
(D) the missions they engage in are increasingly different than the tasks for which they were built
(E) they increasingly engage in missions far different than the tasks for which they were built
Can you please explain why C is wrong? Isn't 'As U.S. nuclear attack submarines prowl their familiar haunts deep within the oceans of the world these days, they increasingly engage in' correct? Aren't we required to use the present tense 'engage' instead of past tense 'engaged'?
Also, what's the difference among 'they increasingly are engaged in', 'they are increasingly engaged in' and 'they engage increasingly in'? Thanks a lot!
Source: OG 11
GMAT Forum
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- RonPurewal
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The main problem with C is bad parallelism, which is hard to see because it straddles the border between the underlined and non-underlined parts of the sentence. If choice C is inserted, you have the following:
'...from the tasks they were built for and for which their crews were trained over the last forty years.'
That's bad parallelism. Because the second half has for which, the first half should have the same construction. It's also worth noting that the GMAT generally frowns upon prepositions at the end of a clause: it would prefer 'the gown in which she got married' to 'the gown she got married in'.
There's also a subtle difference in meaning between 'engage in' and 'are engaged in'; the former implies some sort of conscious involvement in the situation, and the latter implies no such thing. Still, this difference probably isn't the most significant thing in the world.
As for your final question, the placement of 'increasingly' can make a difference. If you say 'increasingly are engaged in,' then you're saying that the FREQUENCY of engagement is increasing. 'Are increasingly engaged in' could be interpreted in the same way, but would most likely be taken to mean that the DEGREE of engagement is going up (and not necessarily that there are more engagements).
The main problem with C is bad parallelism, which is hard to see because it straddles the border between the underlined and non-underlined parts of the sentence. If choice C is inserted, you have the following:
'...from the tasks they were built for and for which their crews were trained over the last forty years.'
That's bad parallelism. Because the second half has for which, the first half should have the same construction. It's also worth noting that the GMAT generally frowns upon prepositions at the end of a clause: it would prefer 'the gown in which she got married' to 'the gown she got married in'.
There's also a subtle difference in meaning between 'engage in' and 'are engaged in'; the former implies some sort of conscious involvement in the situation, and the latter implies no such thing. Still, this difference probably isn't the most significant thing in the world.
As for your final question, the placement of 'increasingly' can make a difference. If you say 'increasingly are engaged in,' then you're saying that the FREQUENCY of engagement is increasing. 'Are increasingly engaged in' could be interpreted in the same way, but would most likely be taken to mean that the DEGREE of engagement is going up (and not necessarily that there are more engagements).
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