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naftalihazony
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AS a lawyer vs As a lawyer does 22 Dec 2017, 09:05
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Hello,

Does anybody have any insight on this sentence?:

A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah can.

I understand that the word can is optional because it is implied.

CORRECT: A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah

Does that mean that I can omit the verb in comparisons when the meaning is implied?

Is the following also correct?

The students learned to think as a lawyer

(this sentence omits the "does". is it still correct?)

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mikemcgarry
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AS a lawyer vs As a lawyer does 24 Dec 2017, 19:12
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naftalihazony
Hello,

Does anybody have any insight on this sentence?:

A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah can.

I understand that the word can is optional because it is implied.

CORRECT: A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah

Does that mean that I can omit the verb in comparisons when the meaning is implied?

Is the following also correct?

The students learned to think as a lawyer

(this sentence omits the "does". is it still correct?)
Show more
Dear naftalihazony,

I'm happy to respond. :-)

First of all, I have written an entire blog article on this topic:
Dropping Common Words in Parallel on the GMAT
You will find many of the answer to your question there.

The leopard/cheetah question is better without the verb. As far as the GMAT is concerned, if a sentence is correct either with or without a word, then what is the point of including the word? That word contributes zilch to the sentence.

For the student/lawyer question, if we are doing to drop the verb, then it makes it sound like a noun-noun comparison, so we should use "like."

The students learned to think like lawyers.

Short, quick, direct. That's what the GMAT likes.

Does this make sense?
Mike :-)
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AS a lawyer vs As a lawyer does 24 Dec 2017, 21:07
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Dear Sir
I went through the blog, it is very informative.
Can we get the link of all the free blogs by Magoosh?.

mikemcgarry
naftalihazony
Hello,

Does anybody have any insight on this sentence?:

A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah can.

I understand that the word can is optional because it is implied.

CORRECT: A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah

Does that mean that I can omit the verb in comparisons when the meaning is implied?

Is the following also correct?

The students learned to think as a lawyer

(this sentence omits the "does". is it still correct?)
Dear naftalihazony,

I'm happy to respond. :-)

First of all, I have written an entire blog article on this topic:
Dropping Common Words in Parallel on the GMAT
You will find many of the answer to your question there.

The leopard/cheetah question is better without the verb. As far as the GMAT is concerned, if a sentence is correct either with or without a word, then what is the point of including the word? That word contributes zilch to the sentence.

For the student/lawyer question, if we are doing to drop the verb, then it makes it sound like a noun-noun comparison, so we should use "like."

The students learned to think like lawyers.

Short, quick, direct. That's what the GMAT likes.

Does this make sense?
Mike :-)
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mikemcgarry
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AS a lawyer vs As a lawyer does 25 Dec 2017, 09:21
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gmatbusters
Dear Sir
I went through the blog, it is very informative.
Can we get the link of all the free blogs by Magoosh?.
Show more
Dear gmatbusters,

I'm happy to respond. :-)

My friend, that particular blog article was part of the general Magoosh GMAT blog, which is free in its entirety. Click around and explore: there's a treasure-trove of free resources there. The more you explore, the more you will find.

My friend, if this means anything to you, Merry Christmas. Wishes of joy and prosperity.

Mike :-)
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ccooley
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GMAT 1: 790 Q51 V49
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AS a lawyer vs As a lawyer does 30 Dec 2017, 14:08
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naftalihazony
Hello,

Does anybody have any insight on this sentence?:

A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah can.

I understand that the word can is optional because it is implied.

CORRECT: A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah

Does that mean that I can omit the verb in comparisons when the meaning is implied?

Is the following also correct?

The students learned to think as a lawyer

(this sentence omits the "does". is it still correct?)
Show more

Ooh, this is an interesting one.

There's a difference between your two sentences that I don't believe anybody has mentioned. In the first sentence, there's a comparison phrase:

A leopard cannot run as fast as a cheetah.

In the second sentence, there's no such phrase. It doesn't say 'The students learned to think as effectively as lawyers', for instance. (By the way, that sentence would be correct.)

Instead, it just uses a single word, 'as'. 'As' is one of those words that has a lot of different uses, and that makes the rules a little bit more complex.

For example, there's a rule that helps you choose whether to use just the word 'like' to make a comparison, or just the word 'as'. If you're choosing between 'like' and 'as', the rule is that 'like' goes with nouns, and 'as' goes with phrases. That's why 'The students learned to think like lawyers' is correct. 'Lawyers' is just a noun, so you want to use 'like'. In contrast, 'The students learned to think as lawyers do' is also grammatically correct. 'Lawyers do' is a phrase, not just a noun, so you want to use 'as'.

Where it gets a little tricky, is when you think about dropping the 'do'. Normally, like mikemcgarry says, that's a good idea. You can drop words that are obvious. But in this particular case, when you drop 'do', all you have left is a single noun: 'lawyers'. And suddenly, your sentence is breaking the rules. The rules say that if you're choosing between 'like' by itself and 'as' by itself, you use 'like' with a single noun, not 'as'.

There's also a second problem here. 'As' has yet another meaning. For instance, you could use 'as' in this sentence:

'I learned to knit as a young child.'

That's grammatically correct. (But wait - didn't I just say that you can't use 'as' by itself along with a noun, like 'a young child'?)

The reason it's correct is that I'm not comparing myself to a young child. I'm not saying that I was knitting similarly to how a young child knits. I'm not comparing the way that I knit to the way that a young child knits. I'm literally saying that I was a young child, and at that time, I learned to knit. It's not actually a comparison at all!

So another reason that the second sentence, 'The students learned to think as a lawyer', sounds strange, is that using 'as' in this way makes it sound as if the students are lawyers. That's not the intended meaning, so you want to avoid using a sentence that sounds like that.

Archived Topic
Hi there,
This topic has been closed and archived due to inactivity or violation of community quality standards. No more replies are possible here.
Where to now? Join ongoing discussions on thousands of quality questions in our Verbal Questions Forum
Still interested in this question? Check out the "Best Topics" block above for a better discussion on this exact question, as well as several more related questions.
Thank you for understanding, and happy exploring!
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