The investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of this sentence is that the investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support the generalization that there is little that is significantly different in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Modifiers + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• An adjective can only modify a noun; it cannot modify another adjective; to modify an adjective, an adverb must be used; generally, adjective+ly leads to an adverb.

A: The sentence formed by this answer choice uses the phrase "generalization of there being little"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support the generalization that there is little that is significantly different in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures. Further, Option A uses the needlessly wordy phrase "that is a significant difference", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

B: The sentence formed by this answer choice uses the phrase "generalization of there being little"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support the generalization that there is little that is significantly different in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures.

C: The sentence formed by this answer choice uses the phrase "generalization of little"; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that the investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support the act of generalizing about what little is significantly different in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures; the intended meaning is that the investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support the generalization that there is little that is significantly different in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the adjective "significant" to modify the adjective "different"; please remember, an adjective can only modify a noun; it cannot modify another adjective; to modify an adjective, an adverb must be used; generally, adjective+ly leads to an adverb.

D: Correct. The sentence formed by this answer choice uses the phrase "generalization that there is little that is significantly different", conveying the intended meaning - that there is little that is significantly different. Further, Option D correctly uses the adverb "significantly" to modify the adjective "different". Additionally, Option D is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

E: This answer choice alters the meaning of this sentence through the phrase "little that is significant differences"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support the generalization that there is little that is significantly different in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

The investigations of many psychologist and anthropologists support the generalization of there being little that is a significant difference in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different culture.

The investigations -> Subject
of many psychologist and anthropologists -> Prepositional phrase about subject
support -> Verb
the generalization -> Object

Now we need "that" to modify the generalization

A of there being little that is a significant difference
B of there being little that is significantly different
C of little that is significantly different

Basically the sentence says there is little difference
Now little differences which are significantly different
So Significant should modify "little" -> So we should have a construction where little is modified

D that there is little that is significantly different -> D does it
E that there is little of significant differences -> significant -> adjective modifying differences , We require Significantly (an adverb) modify little which is acting as verb
The clause is "There is little difference" little is verb. So we require "significantly" instead of "significant".


Hence D) and not E)

Dear DmitryFarber GMATGuruNY MartyTargetTestPrep AjiteshArun IanStewart GMATNinja,

Can "little" be ever used with COUNTABLE nouns at all?

I think I've heard some phrases along the line of: little boys / little dolls... Here, I think "little" is an adjective meaning SMALL.

Why is it incorrect to use "little" in E?

Yes, like many words, "little" can be used in different ways. Answer E is grammatically nonsensical independent of the usage of "little" though, so it's not specifically the use of "little" that makes E wrong. But even if E were phrased grammatically, and read

"...the generalization that there are little, significant differences in the mental processes..."

that would invert the meaning of the sentence -- it would say that "little" differences do exist, and those differences are significant. That's not an especially logical meaning, since the differences presumably would not be "significant" if they were also "little". The sentence is trying to say the exact opposite: that there are not important differences. A good writer also wouldn't use "little" in this way (in the way I just used it in my invented sentence) since, used this way, it's ordinarily used to describe physical objects ("small" would be a more idiomatic choice here), but that's a minor issue compared to the meaning problem.

Dear IanStewart,

(D) that there is little that is significantly different
(E) that there is little OF significant differences

After I checked with many GMAT websites, I found the above to be the correct wording of this question.
Does the issue you replied above still exist in light of the correct version of choice E.?

Yes, that version of answer E also makes no sense if inserted in the sentence.

Dear IanStewart,

If choice E. were that there ARE FEW significant differences, would it be correct?
I think the above version would be correct.

I note that LITTLE has the same meaning as FEW.

I'm confused here. Please help sir.

As E was written, I have no idea what the word "of" is doing there, or why "differences" is plural but "is" is singular. So the official version of that answer choice is just meaningless in English. Your suggested replacement is grammatically correct (note though that you've made it very different from the official answer E; they're not analogous). Your suggested version of E conveys a somewhat different meaning from the answer D (your E suggests there may be some significant differences, but not many of them, while D suggests that the two things are almost the same), but unless you knew which meaning was intended, I don't think you could choose between them on grammar alone.

And this is not true -- perhaps this is the source of your confusion. If I'm an editor commenting on an article and say

"There are few changes to be made"

then I'm talking about the number of changes required -- I'm saying "there are not many changes to be made".

If instead I say

"There are little changes to be made"

that means the article needs changes, but those changes are minor in character. I'm not saying anything now about how many changes are needed; I'm only saying they are not major changes.

"Little" and "few" are versatile words in English that are used in many different ways, so it will sometimes be true that they can be used almost interchangeably. But that's not generally true, and is not true with how you've used them in your post above that rephrases answer E.

Dear IanStewart,

The question that I PM you may not be clear.

Let me try to articulate my doubt on the meaning issue quoted above.

Although I agree with you that choice D. contains GRAMMATICAL error, I think choice D. and E. have similar MEANING.

(D) that there is little THAT IS significantly different
(E) that there is little OF significant differences

In both choices, bolded parts modifies LITTLE.
And if we look specifically at the bolded part, the two are the same, except the part of speech in bolded modifiers

In choice D., "significantly" modifies "different"
In choice E., "significant" modifies "differences"

I do not quite see meaning issue in choice D.
Could you please explain how choice D. and E. differ in terms of MEANING?

There is no grammatical error in choice D.



What is the word "of" doing in answer E? Why is "differences" plural? There's no way to say what E means because it doesn't make any sense.

If you rephrase E, as you did in an earlier post, it becomes grammatically correct, but it does still differ in meaning slightly from answer D.

Dear IanStewart,

Sorry to ask so many questions. Thank you for your patience.
I'm not clear whether the problem with choice E. really is MEANING or GRAMMAR.

So, if choice E. were that there is little of significant difference (without "S" after "differences"), you still think that its MEANING doesn't make any sense at all because LITTLE and SIGNIFICANT contradict each other and should not appear together?

However, if choice E. were that there are FEW significant differenceS, then as you said the MEANING would be logical although FEW and SIGNIFICANT appear together?

"little of significant difference" is simply not English, so that is wrong regardless of what the words mean.

Whether "little" and "significant" are contradictory when used together depends on how they are used. If I say that something "is of little significance", there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying something isn't very important. If instead I say "I made little significant changes to the document" I'm saying my changes were very minor, but were also significant. In the first case, "little" describes "significance" whereas in the second it describes "changes", so "little" is being used differently in these two examples. The second usage seems a bit illogical to me, although I suppose it could make sense occasionally.

Similarly there is nothing wrong with saying "there are few significant differences", though this means something different. This sentence is not now talking about the degree of significance in the differences; it's talking about the number of significant differences.

The investigations of many psychologist and anthropologists support the generalization of there being little that is a significant difference in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures.

Here, the right idiom structure would be: generalization that....

Since (A), (B), and (C) do not have this idiom structure, we can eliminate (A), (B) and (C).

(D) that there is little that is significantly different - In (D), meaning conveyed in unambiguous and clear. Hence, (D) is the right answer choice.

(E) that there is little that is significant differences - Here, "little" is being equated to "significant differences". This does not make any sense. Hence, eliminate (E).

Hi Experts

GMATNinja @VeritasKarishma EducationAisle ChrisLele mikemcgarry AjiteshArun egmat sayantanc2k RonPurewal DmitryFarber MagooshExpert avigutman EMPOWERgmatVerbal MartyTargetTestPrep ExpertsGlobal5 IanStewart
other experts AnthonyRitz zhanbo

In option D how can Significantly (Adverb) modify a noun (Different)?

Please answer

different is an adjective actually; difference would be a noun.

Hello Vatsal7794,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "different" is actually an adjective, so it can be modified by adverbs.

The noun form of "different" is "difference", as seen in A and E.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team