Hi All,

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



I personally feel that many of you have gotten confused in selecting the correct answer because the meaning of the sentence is not very clear. So let us first understand the meaning of the sentence. This sentence says that many psychologists and anthropologists carried out investigation and found out that there are very few aspects that are drastically different in the thought processes expressed by people belonging to different cultures.



Now that we understand the meaning, it’s time to figure out the errors in the sentence. The underlined phrase “of there being” does not clearly convey that this generalization is about something. Also this “little” itself is not a “significant difference”. There is little that is “significantly different”. Hence, this phrase has to be reworded too. Now let’s run the POE to get the correct answer.

POE:

Choice A: of there being little that is a significant difference: Incorrect for reason stated above.

Choice B: of there being little that is significantly different: Incorrect as it repeats the “of there being” issue as in Choice A.

Choice C: of little that is significantly different: Incorrect. This choice distorts the meaning of the sentence because now it says “generalization of little”. The generalization is not about little.

Choice D: that there is little that is significantly different: Correct. This choice corrects both the errors in the original sentence. What this generalization is about is absolutely clear from the “that clause”. Also, it correctly conveys that there is very little that is significantly different.

Choice E: that there is little of significant differences: Incorrect as “differences” is a countable noun and hence, we should use “few” and not “little”.



1. It is very important to understand the intended meaning of the sentence to arrive at the correct answer.
2. Use correct expressions to clearly convey the intended meaning.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Conkergmat, could you explain in detail why you ruled out E. To me, only options are A and E (for use of "differences in") and D is out. But, since A is awkward, E should be the answer.

I think, only D and E can come close - I went for E.
Idiom: difference in X (X being noun).

D. A,B,C are out because the of doesn't work
E is out because of the of also.

I did not find a convincing answer for E to be incorrect.

I googled this question and found the following explanation which makes sense:

Idiomatic usage. In the phrase 'little of X', the X has to be a singular quantity. If it's plural (like 'differences'), then you have to use few.

Examples:

There was very little food left over at the end of the party.
There were very few crab cakes left over at the end of the party.

E is wrong. "little of significant differences" is incorrect because differences is plural. we cannot use little.

Hi mates,

IMO E

A and B out because of "being"
C sounds wordy: what is "that" modifing?
D sounds wordy: idem
E hold

OA and Source?

Thanks
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OA is D. Thanks for the explanations.

IMO E.
Assuming that everybody narrowed down to choices D & E; this is my explanation for E.
IMO the meaning of sentence is this:
Investigations support the generalization that there is not much difference in the mental processes of people from different cultures.

Now D says "little that is significantly different"
in other words "some(little) mental processes differ significantly among these people"

Now E says that "little of significant differences"
in other words "not much difference between the mental processes of these people".

hence the way E conveys the message of the sentence is much better that D, assuming I haven't left out any grammatical errors unnoticed.

Of there being is not GMAT like to A B out.
generalization of little does not make sense.

Now between D and E D looks better to me E I don't seem to know the grammar rule as to what is wrong (that there is little of significant - sounds bad to me).

got stuck between D and E.

little "of" differences...of sounded a bit vague so went with E.

Please explain if there is a better of eliminating D.