A Recent Study has Cited Overcomplexity, Increasing Worker Mobility between Companies, And Poor Financial Planning in Estimating that Fewer than half of Eligible American Workers had Contributed the Maximum Amount to their Employer-Offered Retirement Plans.

Question: A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

(A) A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.
(B) Overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning have been cited by a recent study that estimated that over half of eligible American workers do not contribute the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.
(C) Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, less than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans, a recent study estimates.
(D) A recent study of American workers, citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, has estimated that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.
(E) Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, a recent study has estimated that fewer than half of eligible American workers contribute the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

“A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.”- this is a GMAT sentence correction question. This particular GMAT sentence correction topic has been taken from the book ‘The Official Guide of GMAT Verbal Review, 2nd Edition, 2009’. This question checksNoun, Modifiers, and Awkwardness. GMAT Sentence Correction questions comprise 11-16 questions to be completed within 65 minutes. Each Sentence Correction question contains a sentence with an underlined portion that includes 0-2 errors.

Answer: E
Explanation: The following concepts are tested here:

1. Noun
2. Modifiers
3. Awkwardness

Option A: Incorrect

This option is incorrect because it wrongly uses the past perfect tense “had contributed”. The past perfect tense can be used only when a simple past tense also is used in the sentence to refer to another action that has occurred in the past but after the event that is referred to by the past perfect tense. But here, we see no use of simple past tense. So, Option A is incorrect.

Option B: Incorrect

This option is incorrect because it creates awkwardness by using the structure “Overcomplexity, increasing mobility . . . , and poor financial planning . . .have been cited”. This structure indicates to passive voice rather than the preferred active voice. So, Option B is incorrect.

Option C: Incorrect

This option is incorrect because of the incorrect placement of modifying phrase. This statement places the modifying phrase “Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility . . . and poor financial planning” adjacent to “less than half of American workers,”. It wrongly indicates that it is less than half of the American workers and not the recent study that says these factors are causes of the lack of retirement plans. So, Option C is incorrect.

Option D: Incorrect

This option is incorrect because the use of “had contributed” is wrong. We know that a past perfect tense can be used only when a simple past tense also is used in the sentence to refer to another action that has occurred in the past but after the event that is referred to by the past perfect tense. But here, we see no use of simple past tense. So, Option D is incorrect.

Option E: Correct

This option is correct because it uses both the present participle and the present perfect tense to refer to the recent stud. Also, it uses the present tense “contribute” to refer to the study findings. It solves the modifier problem also as the phrase “Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility . . . , and poor financial planning,” is accurately used here as a modifier for “a recent study.” So, Option E is correct.

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