GMAT Ninja SC Expert - Ask Me Anything about GMAT SC and Grammar

This is part of why I keep ranting about sticking with official materials for verbal: it's impossible for test-prep companies to accurately mimic the style of GMAT verbal.

With all due respect to the smart folks at Kaplan, it looks like they missed the mark on this one. There's nothing wrong with the sentence you cited, since it seems to compare "the compounds identified by MBR" (whatever the heck "MBR" might be) to "[the compounds] identified by MR." No problem at all there.

So don't lose any sleep over this!

Ask me anything about GMAT Sentence Correction and grammar

Hello! I'm Charles Bibilos, GMAT Club's resident Verbal Expert, and a GMAT teacher and tutor since... nevermind, I'll feel old if I tell you.

This thread is designed to be an absolute free-for-all on SC, and you're welcome to ask me absolutely anything. If your question is related to a specific question or a topic, please provide a link and a bit about what you want me to address.

And if you're looking for very general advice on how to improve your SC skills, try these links first:

• Beginner's Guide to SC
• How to go from great (760) to incredible (780?!) on SC
• YouTube webinar: getting your priorities right on SC
• Complete Series 1 and Series 2 of our YouTube webinars
• Our old Wednesday verbal chats, with transcripts

Just be warned that non-official questions can be damaging on verbal, so I might be a bit dismissive of flawed, non-official questions. But still: it's an Ask Me Anything thread, so you're obviously welcome to ask me anything. Especially if it involves food. (Because I know you were going to ask: yes, caterpillars are indeed delicious when prepared properly. You're welcome.)

(Edit: because there's a lot of randomness in my soul -- and also have been in the middle of a 10,000-km move -- I'll answer these questions in no particular order. I'll answer them all eventually, though!)

Dear GMATNinja,
I request your suggestion for Idioms study material. I will require meaning and examples both. Though I have gone through Aristotle SC Grail and certain links/Excel file on GMATclub, I am not able to find study idioms with both meaning and examples.

Thanks in advance

Ooh, good question, Samine. I'm not sure that you’ll ever see this particular issue again in an actual GMAT question, but it’s oddly interesting. My first instinct was that your explanations were spot-on, and it took me a while to figure out what was missing.

You’re right that the term “each other” would be used when there are at least 2 objects or people in a group. But the thing you’re missing is that “each other” suggests that everybody in the group is performing the same, reciprocal action. Using your examples:

“My friend, Nicole and I exchanged gifts with each other last Christmas.” – You and Nicole BOTH perform the action of exchanging gifts.
“[Everybody in] our group exchanged gifts with each other last Christmas.” – EVERYBODY in the group performs the action of exchanging gifts.

Back to answer choice (A) from the OG question:

(A) doesn’t quite make sense. “Each other” has to refer to “dance teams”, right? So then the sentence seems to say that dance teams represent their own chief at the court of other dance teams. And that’s pretty weird: have you ever heard of a dance team with its own royal court?

(Speaking as a veteran of quite a few dance companies: we were lucky if the dance company had its own dressing room, let alone a royal court. Once, I had to change costumes 17 times during a single show – and had to do the costume changes in a hallway. I am not making this up. There were also some very interesting wardrobe malfunctions on opening night, but you really don't want to hear about my accidental moments of near-nudity in front of live audiences…)

Anyway, (B) seems clearer: “another” can now refer to a chief, instead of a dance team. So now that makes sense: “dance teams represent their own chief at the court of another chief.” Nice.

And (C) is odd, too: “the other” suggests that there’s only one other chief, or one other dance team. Neither of those quite work: “dance teams represent their own chief at the court of the other chief…”? Which other chief? Or if it’s “dance teams represent their own chief at the court of the other dance team”, that’s still weird: which other dance team are we talking about?

So for that reason, (B) seems to be the best of the three.

I hope this helps!

Hi GMATNinja

Please can you help me with this question? This is a question from gmatclub test (V11-14) but my doubt is regarding the use of "account for", which, as far as I know, can be used as "to be responsible for". Having said so, why is answer B incorrect?

The latest investigation proves that either the building-owner or his tenants are to be accounted for yesterday’s fire that burnt as long as or longer than four hours.

A. to be accounted for yesterday’s fire that burnt as long as or longer than
B. accounted for yesterday’s fire, which burnt at least as long as
C. held accountable for yesterday’s fire, which burnt longer or as long as
D. accountable for yesterday’s fire, which burnt at least as long as
E. to be held accountable for yesterday’s fire that burnt longer than or at least as long as

Dear GMATNinja,
I request your suggestion for Idioms study material. I will require meaning and examples both. Though I have gone through Aristotle SC Grail and certain links/Excel file on GMATclub, I am not able to find study idioms with both meaning and examples.

Thanks in advance

Can I also eliminate option C for using 'as a return on'?

Can you please guide on how to approach Adjective-Adverb Questions. I am always confused whenever questions like (supposed vs supposedly, quickly vs more quickly type) pops up..

Aristotle Sentence Correction : Comparison Practice drill :

6. John's shirt, like that of his brother's, is pink in color.

What is the error in the sentence ?

Dear GMATNinja,

Can you clarify the usage of "versus" in GMAT tests?

I have never seen any note about "versus" usage in any theoretical or practical posts anywhere.

Funny enough, but just before the real exam I read somewhere in the Forum that GMAT wouldn't have any questions with "versus", but on the test I got an SC questions with 2 answers having "versus" and 3 answers having "compared to"...

Can you please explain the usage of "versus" for comparisons on GMAT.

Thanks

Posted from my mobile device

Hey Gmatninja,

Was wondering if you could provide some clarity on this question:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/government-o ... 03784.html

I got as far as narrowing down the the choices to A and D but the two 'had's in the sentence threw me off...

My usual strategy for 'had' is try and look for some kind of time aspect in the sentence with the 'had' verb occurring first. Otherwise I'll pick had if it doesn't conform if I am confident other answers are wrong.

In this case though, A, at least by ear, sounds fine...

Government officials announced that restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciative increase in the level of the river resulted from the intermittent showers that had fallen throughout the area the day before.

(A) restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciative increase in the level of the river

(D) restrictions on the use of water would continue because no appreciable increase in the level of the river had

The cat, which is very old, took a nap.
The cat that is very old needs to see the vet today.
The relative pronoun "which" is used for non-essential information set off by commas; "that" is used for essential information and requires no additional punctuation.