Question: Interest rates on mortgages have declined steadily during the first six months of this year but virtually remained unchanged during the next three months.

(A) have declined steadily during the first six months of this year but virtually remained unchanged
(B) declined steadily during the first six months of this year but virtually remain unchanged
(C) steadily declined during the first six months of this year but remain virtually unchanged
(D) declined steadily during the first six months of this but have remained virtually unchanging'
(E) declined steadily during the first six months of this year but have remained virtually unchanged

Correct Answer: E
Explanation:

This line of reasoning can be in favour of the suggested linguistic alteration:

• Parallelism
• Considering two separate truths
• Modifiers

Given that the first half of this year saw a steady reduction in mortgage interest rates, the latter three months saw essentially no change.
With this knowledge, let's explore the choices.

A: Incorrect

This choice is an incorrect one.

The fact that (A) indicates that things "have fallen during the first six months" suggests that they started dropping at the beginning of the year (in the past) and are still declining now, which would likely be this month.

B: Incorrect

B is an incorrect choice. "Over the next three months"—hold on, a second. When referring to anything that occurs during the course of the following three months, the past tense "remained unchanged" is used. The following three months would be months #7-9 since we thought the present was now in month #6.

But when referring to anything that was actually in the future (relative to month), they used the past tense, "remained unchanged."

C: Incorrect

It is an incorrect choice. Well, one's not that much better than the other..so let's keep looking for other clues. We know we are now operating in the past tense since all remaining answer choices are in the past tense.

D: Incorrect

This is an incorrect choice. This is essentially the present tense because we are aware that we are in the past tense and cannot use the phrase "remain virtually unchanged." Since the word "unchanged" ends in "-ed," some people would assume that it is in the past tense; however, "unchanged" is really employed as an adjective, not a verb.

Therefore, in (B) and (C), we need to remove "remain practically unchanged" as well as "almost remain unchanged" (C).

.E: Correct

It is a correct choice. "remained virtually unchanging" or "remained virtually unchanged. "This is an easy one. Clearly (D) doesn't make sense--only (E) makes sense. Choose (E) as your final answer.

We talk about two points in "time" here.
During the first six months, rates went down. Rates stayed the same for the next three months.
If you made a sentence with two simple past tenses, it would be right, but none of the answers fit that. "B" is close, but instead of "remained," it says "remain."

So, the next three months are from now until the end of September. We need the present perfect... dropped for the first six months and has stayed the same for the next three months up until now. "E" is the right answer.

“Interest rates on mortgages have declined steadily during the first” - is a GMAT sentence correction question. The text that is underlined in these questions has grammatical mistakes, and we must select the right response from the list of possibilities. The GMAT verbal section includes GMAT sentence correction.

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