zoezhuyan wrote:
Hi
Mike,
How are you? I have some questions
1/ the main verb is "
ARE"
Flip it: None of properties
ARE known.
As I know, "
NONE of XXX" is a singular subject, so needs a singular verb "
is", here, the main verb is "
ARE", a plural verb,
it confused me a lot.
2/ Redundant.
IMO, it is redundant if
because (of) and
due to
are in one sentence , because both of them introduce a reason,
that's why I cross off A and B.
Is it valid ?
3/ because of VS on account of,
I am curious the comparison
after reading your article
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2016/gmat-sente ... e-mistake/I have a question from GMATPrep:
The golden crab of the Gulf of Mexico has not been fished commercially in great numbers, primarily
on account of living at great depths-2,500 to 3,000 feet down.
(A) on account of living
(B) on account of their living
(C) because it lives
(D) because of living
(E) being they live
before reading
my approaching is
the-golden-crab-of-the-gulf-of-mexico-has-not-been-fished-30324-20.htmlif you are available , please point out my faults at above topic
brief summary of the
crab topic
- Noun is low priority when approach
- on account is idiomatic? what I see more is "account for"
- "because of living at great depth" is correct for me
- divergence with
Vicroty47, it is correct that "living" modifies crab, the subject of the sentence
waiting for your reply
have a nice day
>_~
Dear
zoezhuyanFirst of all, I changed the main verb in the prompt above and on the blog page. Sometimes I don't focus as much as I should on the elements of the sentence that are not part of the underlined section: I have even seen a few mistakes of this sort on official questions. Anyway, on further reflection, I corrected the "
are" to "
is."
Having "
because" and "
due to" in the same sentence is not necessarily redundant. It may just indicate a layered discussion of causality, with different causes discussed at different levels. The (A) & (B) have other problems, but it would be perfectly possible to have a valid and logical statement with both "
because" and "
due to."
The state is raising highway taxes because the frequent traffic delays, due to flooding, necessitate improvements in the highway drainage systems.
Nothing is redundant in that sentence. It just happens that one cause-effect discussion is nestled inside another. The GMAT loves to
nest one idea inside another.
The structure "
on account of" is a curious structure. I believe it is more common in some regions of the US than in others. It is not particular formal, and it certainly isn't universally accepted. In fact, to my ear, it always sounds a little awkward. I don't believe I have ever seen an official question in which it appeared as part of the correct answer. By contrast, the idiom "
to account for" is 100% legitimate and appears frequently on the GMAT.
Now, the GMAT Prep question:
The golden crab of the Gulf of Mexico has not been fished commercially in great numbers, primarily on account of living at great depths-2,500 to 3,000 feet down.
(A) on account of living
(B) on account of their living
(C) because it lives
(D) because of living
(E) being they liveI would eliminate (A) & (B) immediately, because "
on account of" sounds awkward to my ear.
I would say that you still are confusing participles and gerunds. Participles are modifiers.
Gerunds are NOT modifiers. In choice (D), "
living" is a gerund, because it is the object of a preposition. Gerunds take the place of a noun, and as such, they do not modify anything else; after all, nouns typically don't modify anything else. It is crucially important that you understand the difference between participles and gerunds!
I would say that (D) is probably grammatically correct but it is a rhetorical nightmare. It is a sloppy, flabby, indirect way of saying something. Putting the action into a gerund and sticking that gerund inside a prepositional phrase is like hiding the light of the sentence under a bushel basket. Let the action be a verb! Verbs make the sentence active and direct and powerful! Choice (C) is like a 1000 volt wire, and by comparison, (D) is like a 0.5 volt battery. Choice (C) is a much more powerful way to state the information: it jumps out to me as the correct answer, the way a live electrical wire would jump.
Once again, for rhetoric, think about advertisements. The grammar is not always superb, but the rhetoric is usually very powerful. Notice how many times the action word appears as a full verb and how many times it appears as a gerund in a prepositional phrase. The latter is simply not a particularly powerful way to call attention to an action.
Of course, there are circumstances in which [preposition] + [gerund] appears and is perfectly correct on the GMAT, but in those cases, it usually does not involve the action of an action word being sequestered inside a prepositional phrase.
Does all this make sense?
Have a wonderful day, my friend!
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)