Lauch wrote:
Hello,
I am not sure about the proper usage of the auxiliary verb "should". I read that it is used to express moral obligation and not f.e. to express likelihood or conditions.
However, in a CAT I answered the following question:
By applying optimization techniques commonly used to plan operations, it is possible to determine how much effort ought to be devoted to each of a company’s products in order to meet its goals in both the short and long terms.
Correct answer: a company’s managers can determine how much effort should be dedicated to each of the company’s products in order to meet its short and long term goals
Is "should" properly used here? It is definitely not a moral obligation that is described in the sentence above...
Thank you very much in advance.
Dear
Lauch,
I'm happy to help.
In case it's helpful, here's a blog article about auxiliary verbs:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/auxiliary- ... -the-gmat/Your question is much more specific. Here's what I'll say. It's very hard to create simple rules that encapsulate the full use of a word. Language is a living and complex thing. It's true that "
should" is used to express moral obligations, but more general, it expresses obligations under all sorts of contingencies. The general format is:
If you want X, you should do Y.
If no particularly contingency is explicit, then the assumed contingency is something along the lines of "
if you want to be a good person" or "
if you want to go to heaven when you die" or something of that sort. All kinds of other contingencies can be expressed.
If you want to get rich, you should work for a hedge fund.
If you want to lose weight, you should cut all sweets from your diet.
If you want to rob a bank, you first should perfect your safe-cracking skills. The context may be amoral or completely immoral. The word "
should" has no intrinsic moral valence.
The sentence from the CAT is flawless.
A company’s managers can determine how much effort should be dedicated to each of the company’s products in order to meet its short and long term goals.
Here, the contingency is expressed in an
infinitive of purpose, so the context is clear, and in that context, the prescriptive "
should" is 100% justified. The word "
should" always implies some kind of goal, and as long as that goal or target is made clear, the effort to reach that goal or target makes perfect sense. Once again, it's only when no explicit goal is mentioned (e.g. "
You should treat others with kindness") that there is an implied moral/ religious/ spiritual thrust to the statement.
An entirely separate use of "
should" is also grammatically correct. It's a sophisticated way to talk about future possibility:
"
Should Hillary Clinton be elected in 2016, she would be in a position to replace Supreme Court judges."
This is a hypothetical statement. Note the use of the
subjunctive. We don't know whether Clinton will be elected. This is a more sophisticated way to state the future conditional statement:
"
If Hillary Clinton is elected in 2016, she would be in a position to replace Supreme Court judges."
Either is perfectly correct.
It's hard to formulate simple rules that capture the living complexity of English. In fact, it's impossible to arrive at GMAT SC mastery by learning some ideal set of rules. The only way you attain mastery is to encounter all the variations present in sophisticated writing, and to do this, you need to develop a habit of reading.
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/how-to-imp ... bal-score/Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)