Use of "And" in SC

[alicezyk]

For the last five years the Dutch economy has grown faster than Britain, France, or Germany, with the unemployment rate having remained well below that of the other three countries.
A.Britain, France, or Germany, with the unemployment rate having remained
B.have those of Britain, France, or Germany, and the unemployment rate remaining
C.have Britain, France, and Germany, and the unemployment rate has remained
D.the economy of Britain, France, and Germany, with the unemployment rate that has remained
E.the economies of Britain, France, and Germany, and the unemployment rate has remained

GMAT PREP question.

I know the correct answer is E. But I just eliminated E simply because the use of " and". Cuz I remembered in Ron's lectures, he said " And" is used to connect two Separate and independent Things or Actions.

But here to me, the Dutch's economy has grown faster than those countries and the unemployment rate is below the rates of those countries don't seem like separate ideas.

I simply interpreted the latter as a result/implication of the former.
Is my understanding wrong?
And can I actually use "and" to make splits?

Thanks!!

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I just reread the examples Ron gave that incorrectly used "And".

The first one, "Scientists succeeded in mining heat and producing energy." It's wrong because it should be mining heat to produce energy. It's not independent or separate.

The second example, "........a plan to impose new controls on pollution from truck and bus engines, and jointly adopting..."
It's wrong cuz it should be by adopting.
"Jointly adopting" is actually a part of" A plan to impose new controls"

Seems like those 2 examples are so similar that none of them will make sense if we use "and".

But my former question would still make sense if I use "and".
So it's not absolutely wrong. Thus I cannot eliminate it just by the Rule. It will be an oversimplification of the Rule.


Is my reasoning correct?
Thanks!!

[Willy]

Correct option E says -

For the last five years the Dutch economy has grown faster than the economies of Britain, France, and Germany, and the unemployment rate has remained well below that of the other three countries.

We can't simply interpreted the latter as a result/implication of the former in the above question as there is no result or implication marker in the option E.

I mean, if the sentence meant latter as a result/implication of the former then there would be a result or implication marker such as SO, HENCE, BECAUSE etc... in the sentence.

Let me quote a bit from Ron's explanation

for instance:
today there was extra traffic on the freeway and i was late to work --> the use of "and" in this sentence actually implies that the traffic was NOT responsible for my being late to work.

(if you wanted to imply that i was late because of the traffic, you could write, among other things, there was extra traffic, so i was late or i was late because there was extra traffic.)

(sorry, I don't have link to the above quoted part right now as I saved this part in word file without the link, my bad, but I am sure this is from Ron's examples.)

[alicezyk]

Correct option E says -

For the last five years the Dutch economy has grown faster than the economies of Britain, France, and Germany, and the unemployment rate has remained well below that of the other three countries.

We can't simply interpreted the latter as a result/implication of the former in the above question as there is no result or implication marker in the option E.

I mean, if the sentence meant latter as a result/implication of the former then there would be a result or implication marker such as SO, HENCE, BECAUSE etc... in the sentence.

Let me quote a bit from Ron's explanation

for instance:
today there was extra traffic on the freeway and i was late to work --> the use of "and" in this sentence actually implies that the traffic was NOT responsible for my being late to work.

(if you wanted to imply that i was late because of the traffic, you could write, among other things, there was extra traffic, so i was late or i was late because there was extra traffic.)

(sorry, I don't have link to the above quoted part right now as I saved this part in word file without the link, my bad, but I am sure this is from Ron's examples.)

Hi Willy:
I agree what you said. and I've seen the example given by Ron.
That's why I eliminated E because I thought it should use Hence or Since or whatever, but it used "and" instead :P Now I understand I can't guess the intended meaning in my own way. What I should do is simply finding grammar errors.

[Willy]

Hi Willy:
I agree what you said. and I've seen the example given by Ron.
That's why I eliminated E because I thought it should use Hence or Since or whatever, but it used "and" instead :P Now I understand I can't guess the intended meaning in my own way. What I should do is simply finding grammar errors.

So, you eliminated all the answer choices on the official question. :)

If result or implication marker is not present in the answer choice on official question, we can't think there should be one and eliminate all the choices! Yes, I also check grammatical errors first and then meaning. I think it is good way to approach the questions.

[tim]

good discussion. let us know if there are any further questions on this one..

[alicezyk]

I thought about my mindset again, and I think the best way to tackle GMAT SC problem is to eliminate what MUST BE WRONG(grammar).
Correct answer choices aren't perfect for a lot of times, but correct answers definitely don't have grammar errors. if I just eliminate choices that aren't necessarily wrong (meaning ), I can never find the correct answer.

Correct answer is the Best one out of the 5 choices, not the perfect one.
:P

[tim]

that's the way to think about these!