* Since February, the Federal Reserve has raised its

[zhongshanlh]

I meet this question ong gmatprep test 2.

Why C is wrong", pls, help.

* "continues strong" doesn't make sense.
"strong" is an adjective; there is no noun here for it to modify.

* "would" is wrong; it should be "will".
http://www.beatthegmat.com/demographers ... tml#216712

* the analysts' predictions are ongoing into the present, so the past tense "predicted" is inappropriate.

hi,Ron,sorry to quote this old post,but i don't totally understand what you said.

1.you said that "continues strong doesn't make sense",however,i wonder whether i could place an adjective following the verb "continue" to indicate some state or condition?
for example--->
The flood of refugees continued unabated.
or
continue unchecked
and so on.

2.i am still not quite clear about the use of will here.i have seen the link you gave us.
however , i think "would" will be better than "will",because in the sentence, "analysts predicted for weeks that the target blah blah" doesn't mean the thing predicted is sure to happen( more precisely,i mean the the word "predict").

please clarify me and thank you so much.
best.

[RonPurewal]

1.you said that "continues strong doesn't make sense",however,i wonder whether i could place an adjective following the verb "continue" to indicate some state or condition?
for example--->
The flood of refugees continued unabated.
or
continue unchecked
and so on.

hmm. maybe. those are valid examples -- good point. however, "would" is still inappropriate.

2.i am still not quite clear about the use of will here.i have seen the link you gave us.
however , i think "would" will be better than "will",because in the sentence, "analysts predicted for weeks that the target blah blah" doesn't mean the thing predicted is sure to happen( more precisely,i mean the the word "predict").

please clarify me and thank you so much.
best.

this is not a correct understanding of "would". you don't use this kind of "would" when there is just any degree of uncertainty; it's a purposeful change of tense that's used to emphasize the idea that the event under discussion is certainly, or almost certainly, not going to happen.

in this case, the likelihood is high (after all, experts have been making the same prediction for weeks), so "would" is inappropriate.

[ningli_21]

Instructors:

I saw the following rule regarding the use of 'will' from somewhere else, can you validate if its true?

Three things always take "will" -
prediction
estimation
calculation


Thanks!

[tim]

there is no such rule. if you see a "rule" somewhere and it doesn't show up in our SC strategy guide or come from one of our instructors on the forum, it is probably not a reliable rule..

[aditya8062]

RON i have a doubt regarding option c .i read it in one of your post from BTG and i am copying it :
"would" has 2 main uses:

1 * it's the past tense of "will". i have no idea what the actual name of this tense is, but you can think of it as "a tense that WAS the future, at that time in the past."
for instance:
Jim knows that his son will make the game-winning shot.
this sentence translates into the past tense as
Jim knew that his son would make the game-winning shot.

now if go by this rule (the coloured sentence ) i realise that in option C "predicted " (past tense ) can go with the "would "
where am i getting wrong ?

[sachin.w]

Can someone please comment on the grammatical rules regarding

because of/because/due to/due to the fact that

I believe due to the fact of is wrong ?

here's the easiest way to figure out "due to":

"due to" means "caused by".
if you can't replace "due to" with "caused by", then it's wrong.

for instance:

i was late due to the construction --> incorrect (because you can't say "i was late caused by the construction")

i was late because of the construction --> correct.

--

in general, "due to" only applies to nouns, since it means "caused by".

for instance,
the traffic jam was due to an obstruction in the left lane
or
the traffic jam due to the obstruction in the left lane caused 30-minute delays

these are correct because "caused by" works just fine - the noun modified is "the traffic".

'economy’s continued strength' does act like a noun phrase , yet the correct answer has 'because of' and not 'due to'

Could you please let me know where I am going wrong?

[RonPurewal]

'economy’s continued strength' does act like a noun phrase , yet the correct answer has 'because of' and not 'due to'

"economy's continued strength" is irrelevant, because that isn't what is modified by "due to".
(if you have "X due to Y" or "due to Y, X...", the point is that *X* has to be a noun.)

choice (d) mistakenly uses a "due to..." modifier to describe "analysts have been predicting...". that doesn't work.

[sachin.w]

'economy’s continued strength' does act like a noun phrase , yet the correct answer has 'because of' and not 'due to'

"economy's continued strength" is irrelevant, because that isn't what is modified by "due to".
(if you have "X due to Y" or "due to Y, X...", the point is that *X* has to be a noun.)

choice (d) mistakenly uses a "due to..." modifier to describe "analysts have been predicting...". that doesn't work.

Hi Ron,
Thanks for replying.

Choice d is of the form 'due to Y,X' and X-analysts- is a noun..
I don't understand why is it wrong ..

[jlucero]

'economy’s continued strength' does act like a noun phrase , yet the correct answer has 'because of' and not 'due to'

"economy's continued strength" is irrelevant, because that isn't what is modified by "due to".
(if you have "X due to Y" or "due to Y, X...", the point is that *X* has to be a noun.)

choice (d) mistakenly uses a "due to..." modifier to describe "analysts have been predicting...". that doesn't work.

Hi Ron,
Thanks for replying.

Choice d is of the form 'due to Y,X' and X-analysts- is a noun..
I don't understand why is it wrong ..

Yes, but analysts aren't the reason for the economy's continued strength. Here's the original meaning:

analysts have been predicting X because of the economy’s continued strength.

--
Ron's earlier point:
--
here's the easiest way to figure out "due to":

"due to" means "caused by".
if you can't replace "due to" with "caused by", then it's wrong.

for instance:

i was late due to the construction --> incorrect (because you can't say "i was late caused by the construction")

i was late because of the construction --> correct.
--

OK: analysts have been predicting X because of the economy’s continued strength.

vs

NO: analysts have been predicting X CAUSED BY the economy’s continued strength.

[sachin.w]

thanks Joe

[tim]

:)

[cumulonimbus]

GWD7-Q40:
Since February, the Federal Reserve has raised its short-term interest rate target five times, and because of the economy’s continued strength, analysts have been predicting for weeks that the target will be raised again in November.

A. because of the economy’s continued strength, analysts have been predicting for weeks that the target will
B. with the economy’s strength continuing, analysts predicted for weeks that the target
C. because the economy continues strong, analysts predicted for weeks that the target would
D. due to the economy’s continued strength, analysts have been predicting for weeks that the target
E. due to the fact of the economy’s continued strength, analysts predicted for weeks that the target will


Answer is D Why A is wrong? For me D is wrong coz it says the target BE raised again in November

Hi Ron/Tim,

Since February, the Federal Reserve has raised its short-term interest rate target five times, and because of the economy’s continued strength, analysts have been predicting for weeks that the target will be raised again in November.

In this sentence two IC's are connected by and.
The second one should be somehow related to first one, to show what actually happened was actually expected and predicted.
Do you agree that because of use of and here this connection is missed here.

[RonPurewal]

In this sentence two IC's are connected by and.
The second one should be somehow related to first one, to show what actually happened was actually expected and predicted.
Do you agree that because of use of and here this connection is missed here.

i don't know what "IC" means.

as far as the statement about "and" here -- no, i don't agree. and, moreover, you should be very cautious about trying to carve out strict boundaries around transition words and modifiers.

remember, language has a big job to do: it has to have the capability of expressing every possible thought or relationship that anyone might ever want to put into words!
once you realize this, it becomes pretty obvious that transitions (like "and") will have to play lots and lots and lots of different roles in order for language to be sufficiently expressive.
so, if you have a too-simplistic characterization of a word as ubiquitous as "and", then chances are that you're going to be missing some facets of what that word can do.

--

in any case ... ironically, the deal with "and" in this context is pretty much exactly the opposite of what you've hypothesized here.
if the stuff that happened was the analysts' prediction, then you probably wouldn't use "and" in this way. instead, you'd just use a modifier, or some sort of other connector (as, according to, etc.)
like this:
Just as analysts had predicted for months, the Fed raised the interest rate again yesterday.
it would actually be somewhat inapposite to use "and" here, because, in most contexts, "and" links ideas or events that are at least somewhat separate from each other.

[RonPurewal]

Nope, not a valid reason for elimination.

"And" can connect any two sentences.
Because xxxx, yyyy is a legitimate sentence; there's nothing stopping such a sentence from being the second of two sentences connected by "and".

E.g.,
My wife has the truck, and, because the car isn't running right now, I can't take it either. So, I'll just have to walk.

(I noticed that you referred to this as a "trick""”implying that you realize it's not a legitimate reason to eliminate the choice.)

[RonPurewal]

If we can't eliminate option C by the trick I mentioned above. How would you explain this situation in option C.

If you're asking how choice C can be eliminated, there are at least two ways:
* "Continues strong" is not a thing at all.
* "Continues" is in the present, so it's illogical for "predicted" to be in the past (implying that the analysts are no longer making the same predictions).