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Help me improve my understanding of english sentences

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aravindb
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Help me improve my understanding of english sentences [#permalink] New post   10 Jul 2010, 07:48
Hi,
I am poor at understanding sentences.
Please help me because most of the time i lose many CRs/ a few RCs because of misinterpreting the sentences.This has been a big problem for me.

PS
I am normally good at SC since most of the times ,understanding a sentence is not of great importance.Grammatical structure is important although i agree that some answer choices change the meaning of the original sentence in SC..

The CR is about decrease of unemployment rate between a year and the next year.

Sentence 1 :
less than 2% of the population working or willing to work at the start of the politician's term have stopped working or looking for work

My interpretation of sentence 1:
Say the politician came to office in 2009 . less than 2% of X at the start of politician's term (i.e., 2009) have stopped working/looking for work by 2010

800 Score interpretation of sentence 1:
At the start of politician's term (2009) , less than 2% of X have stopped working at that time (i.e., 2009 ) itself

I would have interpreted the sentence correctly if the phrase At the start of politician's term is at the beginning rather than at the end..
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
understanding words:
whats the difference between incentive and benefit and bonus?
are all of them monetary terms?

I would be really thankful.. Please help me



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aravindb
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Re: Help me improve my understanding of english sentences [#permalink] New post   10 Jul 2010, 07:59
sentence 2:

Currently undergoing rapid gentrification, there still are more Polish residents in Greenpoint,Brooklyn, than in any neighbourhood in the city.

this is an SC question..

My issues:
what is Greenpoint ? i thought it is a city
what is Brooklyn ? i thought it might be a state
what i missed ? any neighbourhood in the city (Brookyln)

I googled, and came to know that Greenpoint is a neighbourhood in Newyork..,
i totally misinterpreted Greenpoint to be city, and[highlight] i dint understand why a city is beign compared to a neighbourhood with in the city < comparing whole to a part >[/highlight]

I lost the SC. :cry:

if we are comparing part to parts , then i know we should use 'than any other neighbourhood'
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Re: Help me improve my understanding of english sentences [#permalink] New post   10 Jul 2010, 12:55
aravindb wrote:
i dint understand why a city is beign compared to a neighbourhood with in the city < comparing whole to a part >


"Greenpoint, Brooklyn" refers to the neighborhood Greenpoint, which is located within Brooklyn. The sentence does not refer to Brooklyn, but only a part of Brooklyn. The sentence compares this part - Greepoint - to other neighborhoods within the city.

And please don't worry about researching Greenpoint. All we need to know is that it's a place where people live. And I don't think there is a need to worry about "whole versus part" comparisons. We are comparing one place to another, and that's legitimate.

I hope this helped some.

And if you want to improve your English comprehension skills, try reading some GMAT Fiction books. This is a good place to start, and it's fun too!

books-to-read-improve-verbal-score-and-enjoy-a-good-read-76079.html?highlight=ml310
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Re: Help me improve my understanding of english sentences [#permalink] New post   11 Jul 2010, 13:25
1
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And there's one thing that I forgot to ask you. What verbal books are you studying to prepare for the GMAT? The most popular guides include Manhattan SC and Powerscore CR.
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Re: Help me improve my understanding of english sentences [#permalink] New post   12 Jul 2010, 22:27
Many Many thanks bmillan01..
i read both the guides that you have mentioned..
my problems lie not so much with logic as with understanding of sentences....

one more sentence
a primitive bacterium that made a precarious living from the anaerobic fermentation of organic molecules
engulfed a smaller cell that had somehow evolved the ability to respire.

does this mean
bacterium is part of a bigger cell?
or
bacterium cell holds one smaller cell.

its not fair on my part not to tell the context of the sentence.
Here is the context : two cells from different species,one living with in the other,in order to survive.
i was confused with which cell was living in which cell..
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Re: Help me improve my understanding of english sentences [#permalink] New post   13 Jul 2010, 10:05
If we eliminate all of the modifiers (adjectives, adverbs, descriptive phrases), then the sentence becomes "A bacterium engulfed a cell." The only helpful modifier that I left out was "smaller." The bacterium was larger than the cell and engulfed (surrounded, covered, etc.) it.

The GMAT verbal section can be particularly challenging for non-native English speakers. Just keep working at it and read some books and magazine articles daily. Overtime, this will help.



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This topic has been closed and archived due to inactivity or violation of community quality standards. No more replies are possible here.
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Thank you for understanding, and happy exploring!
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Re: Help me improve my understanding of english sentences [#permalink]
13 Jul 2010, 10:05
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