Antipoverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of econom

Question

Antipoverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of economic shifts  that have depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills .

(A) that have depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills
(B) having depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills
(C) that have depressed the wages of workers with few or no technical skills
(D) in which the workers' wages with few or no technical skills have been depressed
(E) in that workers with few or no technical skills have wages that are depressed

Vercules · Accepted Answer

Hi Jackouille,

Yes, "Skill" can be both countable and uncountable. In the question's context few is correct few would be appropriate. "Skills" in the question are countable; a worker may have accounting skills, computer skills etc..

He has fewer technical skills than I have. -- > correct

He has lesser technical skills than I have. -- > incorrect

"skills" the plural form of "skill" is almost always used as a countable

Consider the sentence - It doesn't take  much skill  to ride a bicycle with support wheels. -- skill is used as uncountable here

Hope it helps.

Vercules

sayantanc2k · Answer

"Skill" is uncountable when referring to expertise in a  particular  field.
I have little skill in repairing computers.... (uncountable)

However "skill" can also be used as countable as in the example below:
I have a few skills that include repairing computers.... (countable)

geometric · Answer

Anti-poverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of economic shifts  that have depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills .

A) that have depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills  - Eliminate from "little"
 B) having depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills  - Eliminate from "having"
C) that have depressed the wages of workers with few or no technical skills
 D) in which the workers' wages with few or no technical skills have been depressed  - Eliminate from "workers' wages". Also, the original sentence implies that the shifts have depressed the wages. D decreases the significance of the depression of wages through its usage of "which".
 E) in that workers with few or no technical skills have wages that are depressed  - Eliminate from "in that"

So let's go with C.

Swoosh617 · Answer

Anti-poverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of economic shifts   that have depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills.

A) that have depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills
INCORRECT: can't say "with little or no technical skills." That's like saying "with little technical skills," it should be with "few technical skills."

B) having depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills
INCORRECT: again the use of "little" is wrong.

C) that have depressed the wages of workers with few or no technical skills
CORRECT: uses "few"

D) in which the workers' wages with few or no technical skills have been depressed
INCORRECT: is saying that the wages have few or no technical skills

E) in that workers with few or no technical skills have wages that are depressed
INCORRECT: use of "in that" is wrong

Ankit04041987 · Answer

how did you guys decide whether to use few or little, is skill a countable or uncountable noun

Swoosh617 · Answer

I think skills would be countable. For example, "I have one skill (reading)." Or "I have two skills (reading and writing)."

I think skills are countable but the level of skill is not. For example, "He has little skill in reading (his level of reading is poor)."

Darmody · Answer

about this question, I am a little bit skeptical about the fast that skill is considered a countable work. As said before I have the feeling that it could be both considered as countable or uncountable (you can think of the number of "skills" a person has, or "his skills" as a word to mean his "competence" or "his ability' to do the work and in this case it is uncountable). Can somebody clarify this?

AkashKashyap · Answer

Hello,

Can anyone give some examples of the use of 'skill' in the uncountable context?

Thanks

BillyZ · Answer

Anti-poverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of economic shifts  that have depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills .

(A) that have depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills
(B) having depressed wages of workers with little or no technical skills
(C) that have depressed the wages of workers with few or no technical skills
(D) in which the workers' wages with few or no technical skills have been depressed
(E) in that workers with few or no technical skills have wages that are depressed

GMATNinjaTwo   NOUN + having + VERBing  is always WRONG? (shifts having depressed).

GMATNinja · Answer

I'm pretty certain that you would never use "having + verb" immediately after a noun. The only correct uses of "having + verb" that I've seen on the GMAT look something like this:

Having studied for the GMAT for years, Souvik finally scored in the 99th percentile this week. --> technically speaking, "having studied" modifies Souvik, and the sequencing makes sense: he studied first, then scored in the 99th percentile 
 Having eaten dinner already, Amber immediately began pounding shots at the dinner party. --> also fine, since Amber ate dinner first, and then began drinking heavily at the dinner party

But I can't come up with a correct version of the "noun + having + verb" construction in (B).

I hope this helps!

BillyZ · Answer

" having had " is actually a modifier phrase and not used often on the GMAT. " have had " is present perfect.

Below are examples of how each could be used in a sentence:

Having had chicken pox as a child, I will never get that disease again.

I have had chicken pox only once in my life.

GMATNinja , Could you help to explain the correct usage and the meaning of " having had ", " have had / has had " and " had had "?

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi hazelnut, the thing is that  have / has / had  can be used as  verbs , depicting the meaning of  possession .

For example:

I have a car.

This sentence is in  simple present . The presence of  have  in this sentence does not make this sentence  present perfect . Here,  have  is used as a verb denoting  possession  (I possess a car).

The corresponding  simple past  of this sentence would be:

I had a car 2 years back.

The corresponding  present perfect  of this sentence would be:

I have had a car for 2 years.

Here,  have  is the  indicator  of present perfect, while  had  is a past participle of the verb  have .

The corresponding  past perfect  of this sentence would be:

I had had a car for 2 years, before it developed a snag.

Here, first  had  is the  indicator  of past perfect, while second  had  is a past participle of the verb  have .

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  these avatars of have had/has had , its application and examples. Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference

chenlongxiangyu · Answer

Hi,

For option (C), isn't there 2 interpretations of the meaning?

(C) that  have depressed  the wages of workers  with few or no technical skills 
Meaning: Economic shifts depressed the wages of worker with the help of few or no technical skills. Here "few or no technical skills" is considered a tool to depress.

(C) that have depressed the wages of  workers with few or no technical skills 
Meaning: Economic shifts depressed the wages of worker, who has few or no technical skills. Here "few or no technical skills" modifies the workers.

Whereas in option (E), the meaning is clear because "workers with few or no technical skills" becomes the subject of the clause. Though I know "in that" is an incorrect use, I am just wondering which problem is more prominent in such case.

GMATNinja · Answer

English is complex enough that virtually any sentence can be interpreted in multiple ways if you're really determined to find alternate meanings. The question is whether there's any  reasonable  ambiguity. Take the following example:

"Tim purchased the blue recliner with the gray footrest."

Now, it's technically true that because prepositional phrases can modify either nouns or actions, there are two ways we can understand this sentence:

1) "With the gray footrest" modifies the noun "the recliner." In other words, Tim purchased the recliner that was accompanied by a footrest.

or

2) "With the gray footrest" modifies the action "purchased." In other words, Tim used the footrest to purchase the recliner.

But no reasonable person would default to interpretation #2, right? Because there's only one reasonable interpretation, this sentence isn't actually ambiguous.

Same reasoning here. No reasonable reader would interpret (C) to mean that the economic shifts are using "few or no technical skills" to depress the wages of workers! So it must be true that "with few or no technical skills" is simply describing the workers.

Now look at (E):

Antipoverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of economic shifts in that workers with few or no technical skills have wages that are depressed

"In that" means "because" or "in the sense that." But it's not logical to write that anti-poverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of economic shifts  because  low-skill workers have depressed wages! It's far more logical to have causality run the other way: economic shifts are causing a decrease in workers' wages. So it's true that (E) is not ambiguous, but its only plausible meaning is illogical, so it's out.

I hope that helps!

Rishikesh92 · Answer

that here corresponds to economic shifts which is plural. 
should "those" be used instead of "that"

sweetlyimproved · Answer

sayantanc2k   GMATNinja   EducationAisle  :
Thanks for your posts on the topic! Can I figure out that "skills" is countable, on this case, because it's usend in plural form? Is it enough reason to conclude this?

GMATNinja · Answer

When "that" is used as a conventional  pronoun , we have to worry about singular vs. plural. We'd use "that" to stand in for a singular noun and "those" to stand in for a plural.

"The dogs on Tim's porch seem to be urinating with far greater frequency -- and with far worse aim -- than  those  on Amy's porch."

Here, "those" is a stand-in for the plural "dogs."

But when "that" is used as a modifier, we don't need to consider whether the noun it's describing is singular or plural. We'd use "that" for either case, the same way you could use the word "ugly" to describe one man or multiple men.

The dogs  that  are urinating on Tim's porch seem to be delighted with themselves.

Now "that" is a modifier describing Tim's dogs, rather than functioning as a stand-in for another set of dogs, so the singular vs plural question is irrelevant.

In the example you cited, "that" is functioning as a noun modifier, so it's correct.

I hope that helps!

VerbalBot · Answer

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Antipoverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of econom

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Antipoverty initiatives have had to contend with two decades of econom

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