Hello all!
This was the reply I posted on the
MGMAT web site. I think it bears emphasizing given people's reactions to this matter:
"There are more questions now in which two or more answers are grammatically correct, but only one maintains the meaning of the original question stem."
If these are like the examples that I have seen myself in
the Official Guide, et c., I have to say that ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time, when two answer choices have grammatically correct syntax and idioms but different semantics, the incorrect one is incorrect not so much because it fails to match the meaning of the original as because the meaning is, when you think about it long enough, illogical. This makes the sentence grammatically incorrect, because language is about communication, and grammatical rules are there to govern the output of this communication. A sentence fails when it does not say what the speaker wanted to say.
For that matter, the stem in Choice A can be semantically incorrect as well. Try this one, from
MGMAT's own Sentence Correction book:
"Unskilled in math, Bill's GMAT Quant score was poor."
That's a faulty, illogical opening modifier (Bill's GMAT Quant score cannot be unskilled in math)--and therefore it is a semantic error. If something like that appears in choice A, you definitely should NOT preserve that original meaning in your final answer choice.
'When we asked how common idioms still are right now and when they would be gone completely, he said that “ideally” he hopes they’re all gone already, but there may still be some in the pool – it takes time to scrub the questions completely.'
I doubt whether you can COMPLETELY delete idiomatic aspects of grammar from the pool; they are as grammatical as everything else. Sure, you can write fewer questions that place emphasis on which preposition goes where, but questions that emphasize various aspects of the meaning of a sentence inevitably touch on proper diction and there will be some idiom in there by default.
But
MGMAT seems to have clarified that with this addendum to the original full article:
“Note: a few days after this was originally published, GMAC clarified that only American-centric idioms and expressions have been stripped out of the exam. We have edited the below accordingly so as not to leave any misinformation to confuse other students in the future. (30 Sep 2011)”
Cheers!