Question

Because the budget package in Congress promises a combination of higher taxes and reduced spending that may slow economic growth, many in the credit markets wonder whether the Federal Reserve will compensate and help the economy by keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even if they push them lower.

• A. by keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even if they push
• B. by its keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even by their pushing
• C. by keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even by pushing
• D. through their keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even push

Answer 1

The correct option is C by keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even by pushing

When we see a sentence with the construction "A or B" - we are dealing with parallelism. The items - A and B - must be the same part of speech, logically and grammatically parallel. In other words, if A is a noun, B must be a noun. If A is a verb, B must be a verb, etc.

In the current sentence, we see that the word "or" is used, but the A and B items are not parallel in the original sentence. "By keeping" is wrongly placed in parallelism with a conditional clause "even if they push". For the parallelism to be correct, we need a B item that parallels "by keeping".

This criterion is sufficient for eliminating A, D, and E.

The only answer choices in which "by keeping" is correctly paralleled are B and C ("by keeping " parallel "by pushing"). However, answer choice B is wordy, unclear and has superfluous words. We don't need "its' or "their" to achieve clarity. Therefore C is the correct answer choice.