Today, despite widely available technology such as high-resolution scanners and printers, counterfeiting is more difficult than it was at the time of the Civil War, when it was estimated that one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit.

A) Today, despite widely available technology such as high-resolution scanners and printers, counterfeiting is more difficult than it was at the time of the Civil War, when it was estimated that one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit.

B) Despite widely available technology such as high-resolution scanners and printers today, counterfeiting is more difficult than it was at the time of the Civil War, when it was estimated that one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit.

C) Despite widely available technology such as high-resolution scanners and printers, counterfeiting is more difficult than at the time of the Civil War, when it was estimated that one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit.

D) Today, despite widely available technology such as high-resolution scanners and printers, counterfeiting is more difficult than when it was estimated that one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit at the time of the Civil War.

E) Today, because of widely available technology such as high-resolution scanners and printers, counterfeiting is more difficult than it was at the time of the Civil War, when it was estimated that one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit.


QUESTION: Can someone explain why "Today, despite widely available technology such as..." is not an incorrect modifier? I thought that if you had a modifying clause after a comma (in this case, "despite widely..."), that modifier modifies the word right before the comma. I therefore took this to be an incorrect modification of "Today", but the correct answer indicates the structure is fine.

Help please!

That is true in the case of a noun followed by a modifying clause; however, in this sentence the word "today" is actually serving as an adjective.

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

Narrowed down to A and E.

Why is E wrong ?
I thought that the sentence meant to say that ' because of so and so technology , the counterfeiting is more difficult now then it was before.

I am not able to get the meaning of the original sentence that uses DESPITE . Please advise.

The distinction between ”despite” and ”because of” is exactly what makes all the difference here. Think about whether better printing and scanning technology should make counterfeiting harder or easier (the answer of course is easier). But in reality counterfeiting is harder. This is precisely the situation where you would use the word ”despite”..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor