Shrinking faster than any other nation’s, the projected

[Guest660]

Shrinking faster than any other nation’s, the projected decline of Japan’s population is 17 percent during the next half century.
A. Shrinking faster than any other nation’s, the projected decline of Japan’s population is
B. Shrinking faster than any other nation, Japan’s population has a projected decline of
C. The population of Japan is shrinking faster than that of any other nation and is projected to decline by
D. The Japanese population is shrinking faster than any other nation, and it has a projected decline at
E. Japan’s population is shrinking faster than that of any other nation, with a projected decline at


Left with C and E

OA C

In E - with a projected decline at - modifies "is shrinking" ...

is it that decline by > decline at ?

[Guest]

With answer choice 'E' - the part 'with a projected decline..." refers to the nation. But the discussion is about Japan's population and 'C' is the best choice.

[rfernandez]

I disagree with Guest that "with a projected decline..." is necessarily modifying "nation." Prepositional phrases may be adjectival or adverbial modifiers, and here one could argue that "with a projected decline..." modifies the verb "is shrinking."

Guest660 is right that the key split between C and E is the idiom. "Decline at" is simply the wrong idiom.

[tathagat_mbakid]

Nice explanation Ray.

Could you clarify the following too?

A)Alaska regularly deposits some of its profits from the sale of oil into a special fund, with the intention to sustain the state’s economy after the exhaustion of its oil reserves.

What is the part of the sentence starting with "with" above ?Certainly not a prepositional phrase.
And is it being used correctly as a modifier in the sentence?

The correct answer though is :
C)Alaska regularly deposits some of its profits from the sale of oil into a special fund intended to sustain the state’s economy after oil reserves are exhausted

and i am confused between A and C!
Thanks,

[RonPurewal]

What is the part of the sentence starting with "with" above ?Certainly not a prepositional phrase.
And is it being used correctly as a modifier in the sentence?

it's definitely being used as an adverbial modifier. and yeah, it is a prepositional phrase (with the intention... -- and everything afterward basically just modifies intention)
this is the sort of construction that probably skirts the boundary of acceptability on the gmat - i'd think they would prefer other constructions (such as the one that's in the correct answer to this problem), although i would hesitate to declare this particular construction outright wrong.

in any case, there's a problem with the example you've cited here: 'the state's' should be its, because the use of this sort of modifier implies that alaska is still the subject.

[rohit21384]

Shrinking faster than any other nation’s, the projected decline of Japan’s population is 17 percent during the next half century.
A. Shrinking faster than any other nation’s, the projected decline of Japan’s population is
B. Shrinking faster than any other nation, Japan’s population has a projected decline of
C. The population of Japan is shrinking faster than that of any other nation and is projected to decline by
D. The Japanese population is shrinking faster than any other nation, and it has a projected decline at
E. Japan’s population is shrinking faster than that of any other nation, with a projected decline at


Left with C and E

OA C

In option E, isn't that refers to "Japan’s population " as you cannot seperate them.
Instructors please reply.

[RonPurewal]

In option E, isn't that refers to "Japan’s population " as you cannot seperate them.
Instructors please reply.

no, you can use "that of Y" in parallel to either "NOUN of X" or "X's NOUN".

[phuonglink]

i have 2 questions related to this sc:
1. can these points be used to eliminate incorrect options?
(A) wrong modifier: "Shrinking....,projected decline. It is Japan's population that is shrinking
(B) +(D) I eliminated B,D because B,D compares Japan's population with other nations. Is this a compelling point to eliminate B and D?
(E): 'decline at" is unidiomatic
2. Please teach me when we can use "decline by" or "decline of"?

[RonPurewal]

i have 2 questions related to this sc:
1. can these points be used to eliminate incorrect options?
(A) wrong modifier: "Shrinking....,projected decline. It is Japan's population that is shrinking
(B) +(D) I eliminated B,D because B,D compares Japan's population with other nations. Is this a compelling point to eliminate B and D?
(E): 'decline at" is unidiomatic

yes, yes, and yes.

2. Please teach me when we can use "decline by" or "decline of"?

"decline by" is used with the VERB "decline", and is followed by some sort of quantitative measure of the decline in question:
the number of applicants to school X has declined by 20% this year.

"decline of" is used with the NOUN "decline", and is followed by whatever is actually declining. idiomatically, this expression *can* describe literal declines in quantitative measurements, but is more often used to describe a figurative "decline", i.e., a fall from importance or prominence.
the decline and fall of the roman empire took place primarily during the centuries after the reign of constantine.

[gmat.acer]

In option E, isn't that refers to "Japan’s population " as you cannot seperate them.
Instructors please reply.

no, you can use "that of Y" in parallel to either "NOUN of X" or "X's NOUN".

Hi Ron,
I did not get how "that of Y" is parallel to "NOUN of X"? Can you please elaborate ?

I thought that a pronoun must stand for a noun with all attached adjectives and essential modifiers and you can not separate it out from them.

I was going by 'summers in las vegas' example that you mentioned in other forum :http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/gmat-questions-soaring-television-costs-accounted-for-more-t7187-15.html

summers in las vegas are hotter than they are in providence. --> wrong.
I believe this sentence is wrong because the pronoun "they" refer to "summers in las vegas" and not just "summers".

But,
Choice(C): The population of Japan is shrinking faster than that of any other nation --> correct

So in this choice(C), I thought the pronoun "that" stands for "The population of Japan" and not just "population".

What am I missing??

Also in choice (E), what does "that" refer to ? - 'Japan's population' or 'population'?

[RonPurewal]

I did not get how "that of Y" is parallel to "NOUN of X"? Can you please elaborate ?

I thought that a pronoun must stand for a noun with all attached adjectives and essential modifiers and you can not separate it out from them.

that is the case for normal pronouns (they, he, she, it), but not for "relative pronouns" (that, those, etc.)

if relative pronouns were subject to the same rule, then it would actually be impossible to write any comparison with a pronoun!

[divineacclivity]

it's definitely being used as an adverbial modifier. and yeah, it is a prepositional phrase (with the intention... -- and everything afterward basically just modifies intention)
this is the sort of construction that probably skirts the boundary of acceptability on the gmat - i'd think they would prefer other constructions (such as the one that's in the correct answer to this problem), although i would hesitate to declare this particular construction outright wrong.

in any case, there's a problem with the example you've cited here: 'the state's' should be its, because the use of this sort of modifier implies that alaska is still the subject.

Picking the example up from one of the earlier posts here:
***********************************
A)Alaska regularly deposits some of its profits from the sale of oil into a special fund, with the intention to sustain the state’s economy after the exhaustion of its oil reserves.

What is the part of the sentence starting with "with" above ?Certainly not a prepositional phrase.
And is it being used correctly as a modifier in the sentence?

The correct answer though is :
C)Alaska regularly deposits some of its profits from the sale of oil into a special fund intended to sustain the state’s economy after oil reserves are exhausted
**********************************
Ron, if there were another option C-2 (given below), would you prefer this one over C? Please explain why/why not? thanks in advance.

C-2) Alaska regularly deposits some of its profits from the sale of oil into a special fund intended to sustain the state’s economy after exhausting the oil reserves

IMO, "exhausting the oil reserves .." is good because it is the subject only that's exhausting the reserve.

e.g. Tom would go to school after finishing his homework. => Tom would be finishing the homework.
Tom would go to school after his homework is finished/done. - anyone could finish/do his homework


I'm adding one more question here:
"intended to sustain state's economy..." - Is it Alaska or the fund that would sustain the economy?"

[tim]

"after exhausting" is wrong in this case because there is no acceptable subject to do the exhausting. this is what makes it very different from your Tom example..

it should be clear that it's the fund that would sustain the economy..

[RonPurewal]

Ron, if there were another option C-2 (given below), would you prefer this one over C? Please explain why/why not? thanks in advance.

C-2) Alaska regularly deposits some of its profits from the sale of oil into a special fund intended to sustain the state’s economy after exhausting the oil reserves

this construction can't work, because it contains "... after exhausting the oil reserves" (with no subject) but the sentence never mentions the actual entity that will exhaust the oil reserves.

the way this sentence is currently written (intended to sustain the state’s economy after exhausting the oil reserves), it implies that the special fund will sustain the state's economy after it (the fund) finishes exhausting the oil reserves. the fund is definitely not going to exhaust the oil reserves, so this version of the sentence doesn't make sense.

e.g. Tom would go to school after finishing his homework. => Tom would be finishing the homework.
Tom would go to school after his homework is finished/done. - anyone could finish/do his homework

these two examples are perfectly correct. ironically, they also serve to illustrate (a) why the official answer is correct and (b) why your proposed new version is incorrect.

I'm adding one more question here:
"intended to sustain state's economy..." - Is it Alaska or the fund that would sustain the economy?"

the only reasonable interpretation of the sentence is that the fund will sustain the economy. this is exactly the meaning conveyed by the modifier beginning with "intended..."

[thanghnvn]

Normally, "comma+with phrase", which troubles me, modify verb/clause as in this case.

besides "decline at" is wrong idiom and "decline of" is idiom, is the meaning in E not logic?

C means

the population shrinks and then is projected to decline. Shrinking happens before projecting. This meaning is logic.

E means

in the context of projected decline of 17 percent, the population shrinks.
here, projecting happens before the shrinking. This is not so logic as the previous meaning

is my thinking correct ? pls modify.