While the Stock Market was Bouncing Back From Its 2002 Low, U.S. Families are Still Reeling From the Recent Recession

Question: While the stock market was bouncing back from its 2002 low, U.S. families are still reeling from the recent recession; between 2001 to 2004, typical household savings plummeted nearly 25% and the median household debt rose by a third.

(A) was bouncing back from its 2002 low, U.S. families are still reeling from the recent recession; between
(B) bounced back from its 2002 low, U.S. families are still reeling from the recent recession, from
(C) has bounced back from its 2002 low, U.S. families are still reeling from the recent recession; between
(D) has bounced back from its 2002 low, U.S. families are still reeling from the recent recession; from
(E) bounced back from its 2002 low, U.S. families are still reeling from the recent recession; from

“While the stock market was bouncing back from its 2002 low, U.S. families are still reeling from the recent recession”- 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 checks Tenses and Idioms. 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: D
Explanation: The following concepts are tested here:

1. Tenses
2. Idioms

Option A: Incorrect

This option is incorrect because the use of “was” at the beginning of the sentence does not make any sense. According to the above passage, the event of the stock market bouncing back has already happened. So, we can not use “was” to describe an event that has already concluded in the past. Since the usage of tenses is wrong in this sentence, Option A is incorrect.

Option B: Incorrect

This option is incorrect because again the use of “bounced” is illogical and awkward. The preferred choice would be “has bounced”. Also, it can not be the perfect choice because here, two independent clauses are joined by using a comma. Always remember that a semicolon joins two independent clauses. So, Option B is incorrect.

Option C: Incorrect

This option is incorrect because it wrongly uses the phrase “between 2001 and 2004”. The correct idiom must be “from 2001 to 2004”. The use of between is unidiomatic and seems awkward and redundant. So, Option C is incorrect.

Option D: Correct

This option is correct because it correctly uses the tense “has bounced” to refer to an event from the past. It accurately indicates an action began in the past and has continued in the present. The use of the present tense “are still reeling” correctly describes the present situation. Also, it uses the right idiom “from 2001 to 2004”. So, Option D is correct.

Option E: Incorrect

This option is incorrect because “while the stock market bounced back”, indicates that the next action took place at the same time in the past, which is not true and illogical as the next verb “are still reeling” is in the present tense. So, Option E is incorrect.

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