GMATNinja GMATNinjaTwo

could you please explain this question

https://gmatclub.com/forum/atul-gawande ... 85786.html

thanks

Hi! GMATNinja

I have already watched one of your videos and I have a doubt regarding MEANING.

Today's technology allows manufacturers to make small cars more fuel-efficient now than at any time in their production history.

(A) small cars more fuel-efficient now than at any time in their
(B) small cars that are more fuel-efficient than they were at any time in their
(C) small cars that are more fuel-efficient than those at any other time in
(D) more fuel-efficient small cars than those at any other time in their
(E) more fuel-efficient small cars now than at any time in

In the video you finally has chosen C because it lacks the final "their" and hence it has more sense. My problem is that I was able to see that difference in meaning but I have chosen A as I have thought that the abscense of "their" slightly changes the intended meaning.

So, do you have any tip to know when do we have to be faithful to the initial intended meaning of choice A or, on the contrary, choose the answer that has more sense, like C in this case.

Thanks for your help!

A prepositional phrase can be either a noun modifier or a verb modifier, but not both at the same time. (You could write a sentence, theoretically, in which it wasn't clear what role the modifier was playing, but that's an ambiguity problem, not an instance of a modifier doing more than one thing.)

In the example you gave, "She placed the cat on the couch," "on the couch" seems to be describing where the cat was placed (adverbial modifier), rather than differentiating this cat from other cats that were not on the couch (noun modifier). It would be really confusing if "on the couch" just modified the noun "cat": if the cat she placed was the one on the couch, rather than the one in the kitchen, we'd still be left not knowing where she placed the cat. So this one makes sense as adverbial modifier.

However, if I write, "She aimed her water pistol at the cat on the couch," now "on the couch" seems to be describing the cat. She aimed at the cat on the couch as opposed to the one clinging to the ceiling. "On the couch" is a noun modifier here.

But, if I wrote something like, "She fed the cat on the couch," now we have that ambiguity problem, as either interpretation makes sense. Perhaps she was doing the feeding on the couch. Or maybe it was the cat on the couch she was feeding, rather than the cat in the kitchen. Without context, there's no way to know what the author intended. This isn't definitively wrong, but it's problematic in the context of GMAT SC.

I hope that helps!
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(D) has a meaning problem. "The damage of their natural resources," makes it sound as though the natural resources are causing the damage, or worse, are the damage themselves! That doesn't make sense. It's far more logical to write that the damage is happening to the natural resources. This is what we find in (A), which is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!
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Good question! Often, when "as" is used to compared two actions, one of the actions will be implied. For example:

Tim claims that he could run as fast as Usain Bolt [runs], but simply chooses not to.

Notice that Tim is comparing how fast he runs with how fast Usain bolt runs, but the second action didn't have to be stated explicitly. We could write, "Tim runs as fast as Usain Bolt," or "Tim runs as fast as Usain Bolt does." Either is fine, because the meaning is clear.

Same thing in the Manhattan example:

"As in the previous case, the judge took an early break."

"In the previous case" is a prepositional phrase that seems to be modifying an unstated action, so the gist of the sentence is: "As [he had] in the previous case, the judge took an early break." Effectively, we're comparing what the judge had done in the previous case to what he did afterwards.

This kind of construction does show up occasionally on the GMAT, but don't drive yourself crazy looking for unstated actions. Instead, just ask yourself if what the sentence seems to convey is clear and logical compared to the alternatives.

I hope that helps!
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GMATNinja

Looks like you are on a roll today

It is so good to see you posting your helpful replies to so many questions across the forum!
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Hey GMATNinja,
I am not really sure how the "rather than" is used. There are two questions with seemingly contradictory official answers. The first question is this:

Although Governor Sam Houston was averse to abolition, he adamantly opposed Texas's insurrection and secession from the Union; as a result, he decided to resign from office instead of pledging allegiance to the Confederacy, the legality of which he refused to recognize.

A) Union; as a result, he decided to resign from office instead of pledging allegiance to the Confederacy, the legality of which he refused to recognize
B) Union; as a result, he decided to resign from office rather than to pledge allegiance to the Confederacy, the legality of which he refused to recognize
C) Union; and, as a result, deciding to resign from office instead of pledging allegiance to the Confederacy, which he refused to recognize as legal
D) Union; as a result, he decided to resign from office rather than pledge allegiance to the Confederacy, the legality of which he refused to recognize
E) Union, however he decided to resign from office instead of pledging allegiance to the Confederacy, the legality of which he refused to recognize

The answer provided for this question is (D).
One of the top rated comments on gmatclub mentions that "to" can't appear after a "rather than" and that we use always the bare infinitive after the "rather than;" the "to" after "rather than" is dropped.


There is a similar question I'd solved in the past wherein the "to -- " form followed the "rather than" and it was the correct choice there. So either that question is wrong or there's some more nuance to the rule.
It's this Kaplan question (I can't post the link here coz apparently you need a number of posts to be able to post links):

During and immediately after the California gold rush, the way for a merchant to generate the most profit was to move a limited amount of scarce goods to San Francisco as quickly as possible, rather than to carry larger loads more slowly, determining the design of the clipper ship.

A) to carry larger loads more slowly, determining
B) to carry larger loads more slowly, a situation that determined
C) carry larger loads more slowly, which determined
D) slowly carry larger loads which determined
E) carrying larger loads more slowly, and this was a situation in determining

Here, (B) is the right option even though we have "rather than" preceding "to carry."


What's going on here?

As always, I try to stick with official GMAT questions on this particular thread, so I'll pass on addressing these two questions. But I do highly, highly recommend reading some of Atul Gawande's books -- he's a really interesting fellow.


Yeah, this is a sticky issue, just because there really aren't any firm rules for whether you need to repeat a certain phrase when you have a comparison such as this one.

Check out this post, this post, and this post for more on the issue of when it's OK to omit words. I wish that I could give you foolproof formulas for this sort of thing, but in a lot of cases, you just have to ask yourself whether the omission creates an unclear or illogical meaning in some way.

I wouldn't worry too much about this particular question, though -- a lot of the SC questions tagged as "1000 Series" are pretty dubious, and I don't think they're necessarily from an official source.

I hope this helps a bit!
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Nope, this is a sentence fragment. "Rushing" is a noun here (also known as a gerund if you like grammar jargon), and it seems to be the subject of the sentence. Trouble is, the subject "rushing" never actually performs any action at all.

For this to be correct, the sentence would need a verb. For example:

"Rushing the field during a football game is embarrassing if you happen to be wearing a leopard-print bikini."

Now the sentence is OK. Even if the image is slightly disturbing.

For more on the various forms of "-ing" words, check out this article.

I hope this helps!
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Here's the full sentence again, with (B) inserted into it:

The word "that" appears twice in the sentence, but I assume that you're concerned about the phrase in bold above? In that particular phrase, the portion beginning with "that" describes the argument -- not the emotions.

In other words, the sentence is telling us that recent studies support a certain argument. What's the argument? The argument is that emotions are social phenomena that are inseparable from bodily response. (The second phrase beginning with "that" -- "that are inseparable from bodily response" -- just describes the social phenomena.)

I hope this helps!
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