According to some analysts, the gains in the stock market reflect growing confidence that the economy will avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and instead come in for a "soft landing", followed by a gradual increase in business activity.

(A) Same
(B) in the economy to avoid the recession, what many feared earlier in the year, rather to come
(C) in the economy's ability to avoid the recession, something earlier in the year many had feared, and instead to come
(D) in the economy to avoid the recession many were fearing earlier in the year, and rather to come
(E) that the economy will avoid the recession that was feared earlier this year by many, with it instead coming

What is your particular question or concern with this problem? By focusing on the specific issues or processes that are troubling you we can better tailor our explanations.

Thanks

I thought the answer would be (D), but the answer is (A)

First, just want to echo what Dan said - the more information you guys give us about the difficulty you're having with a particular problem, the easier it is for us to explain the solution to you in a way that makes sense to you.

First, there's an idiom issue: X reflect(s) growing confidence that Y will blah blah blah
We need to use "that" for this particular construction and D uses "in" instead. "Confidence in" is a possibly correct construction for talking about someone's confidence in someone or something else - but we can't say that the gains have confidence in the economy.

Second, for verb tenses, "had feared" (past perfect) is the appropriate tense for this sentence as opposed to "wear fearing" (past progressive). Past perfect is used to indicate the first of two (or more) events that took place at distinct (separate) times. Past progressive is used to indicate ongoing actions in the past. In this case, we first have the fear (in the past) and then the other events occur after that.

Finally, they tried to match up "to avoid" and "to come" to make you think you were making the sentence properly parallel - but idiomatically, you shouldn't have the infinitive construction for either. Recall that it should say "that the economy" instead of "in the economy" - you wouldn't say "that the economy to avoid."

Also note that answer choice A doesn't sound all that great - but the test is not a test of what the sentence sounds like. It's a test of grammatical rules. Even if you didn't like the way answer choice A sounded, or if you thought you'd write the sentence differently, if it doesn't actually contain errors, it's not wrong. They like to try to fool us in this way.

Stacey, thanks for another great explanation.

I am curious about the past perfect that is used here. Is it ok that the past perfect is used without another simple past verb - you can use "had feared" without another past tense verb? I was under the impression from the MGMAT books that two past events should occur in the sentence. If it isn't the case, how do I know when to use a past perfect verb ("had feared" vs. a simple past verb "feared"? Thanks!

Wow..for so many reasons (A) was a better choice than (D). Thanks for the nice explaination Stacey.

GMAT 2007

Good question, Anne. In the vast majority of the cases, the second event will also be in the simple past - however, it's not an absolute requirement in English grammar. (There's always an exception to something, isn't there?)

It's rare to see an instance on the GMAT that doesn't follow the "simple past" rule, which is why we explain it that way. In this example, the key thing is that we want to indicate the people used to fear it but don't fear it anymore (as indicated by the phrase surrounding the verb: "economy will avoid... earlier in the year."

So, generally follow the "past perfect + simple past" rule. But if you happen to see a circumstance in which that doesn't fit (and, again, this is rare), don't be afraid to bend the rule a little, as long as it still logically makes sense that we're talking about something past, over, and that state or event has changed (that is, in this case, they are no longer afraid).