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

Here’s the whole sentence, with (B) inserted… and the key phrase in bold:

So “the weather… was colder and wetter than usual in some regions”, right? And the result of this phrase (technically a state of being, and not an action) is that sales of grills and lawn furniture slowed.

It sounds like you might be overthinking the “doer of the action” thing. In this case, “slowing sales of barbecue grills and lawn furniture” very reasonably gives us extra information about the clause “the weather… was colder and wetter than usual.” Did the weather “do” the action of slowing sales? Not exactly. But it still makes perfect sense, right?

I hope this helps!

Huma2703, sorry for my slowness -- I should have tagged you when I responded to a similar question above.

Check out the bottom of this post for a brief -- and probably unsatisfying -- discussion of the word "with" on the GMAT.

And there's no rule that says that you couldn't start a sentence with the word "with." For example, it would be fine to say "I ate 400 dosas with great enthusiasm." The phrase "with great enthusiasm" just modifies the previous verb phrase, "I ate 40 dosas." But there's no reason why we couldn't flip it: "With great enthusiasm, I ate 400 dosas." I personally wouldn't choose to write the sentence that way, but technically speaking, there's nothing wrong with it -- and there are plenty of far more important things to worry about on the GMAT.

I hope this helps!

Hey GMATNinja ,
Regarding,
Analysts blamed May’s sluggish retail sales on unexciting merchandise as well as the weather, colder and wetter than was usual in some regions, which slowed sales of barbecue grills and lawn furniture.

Can we have a clause after than in the above case. Say for eg. one of the choices were to include than people face in arctic regions
1) Analysts blamed May’s sluggish retail sales on unexciting merchandise as well as the weather, colder and wetter than people face in arctic regions, weather that slowed sales of barbecue grills and lawn furniture.

Also in such cases is parallelism right ?
on the one side we have: colder and wetter
Other side we have a full clause: people face in arctic regions.

A similar question from veritas prep in which the correct choice reads.
2) Many newspapers across the country, forced to cope with about half as much advertising revenue as they were receiving twenty years ago, have frantically sought other sources of revenue.

I tried applying (2) in (1).

Also in 3)
A letter by Mark Twain, written in the same year as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were published, reveals that Twain provided financial assistance to one of the first Black students at Yale Law School.
As per the experts answers on the use of "as" i understood from the post that we cannot have a clause after "as" because there is no clause before "as".
The experts also mentioned that if it were "the same year as the year in which Adventures of HF was published", then the sentence is fine. Also if the year is followed by a that the clause would stand.

From 1) 2) 3) can it be concluded that in modifiers "as" cannot be followed with clauses, but than and as X as can ? If yes, how does parallelism work in these cases.
I am not sure if i am getting too analytical but your explanation would be very helful.

Sentence correction
When to use contribute and when to use contributes?

Posted from my mobile device

Hi,

Contribute - used when subject is plural (Eg - they contribute to the society)

Contributes - used when subject is singular (Eg - He contributes to the society)

Thanks

GMATNinja sir,
I've got queries regarding the following question:

A group of students in an American village has been selected for testing a new low-cost electronic notepad being built around a new class of green, power-stingy microchips that use a fraction of the electricity of current computer chips.

A. has been selected for testing a new low-cost electronic notepad being built around a new class of green, power-stingy microchips that use a fraction of the electricity of current computer chips

B. have been selected to test a new low-cost electronic notepad being built around a new class of green, power-stingy microchips that use a fraction of the electricity used by current computer chips

C. has been selected to test a new low-cost electronic notepad to be built on a new class of green microchips, which are also power-stingy and which use a fraction of the electricity used by current computer chips

D. have been selected for testing a new low-cost electronic notepad being built around a new class of green, power-stingy microchips that use a fraction of the electricity of current computer chips

E. has been selected to test a new low-cost electronic notepad being built around a new class of green, power-stingy microchips that use a fraction of the electricity used by current computer chips

I had selected option B instead of E for the following reasons:
'Group of students' is singular BUT 'A group of students' must be plural so 'have been' will come, isn't? On the other hand, if the question stem was either 'The group of students' or 'group of students', it would have been singular and hence we would have used 'has been'.

Where am I going wrong?


Similarly, there's another question which is confusing:

The majority of patrons of the local library, though enthusiastic about a new book mobile service, is unable, or either unwilling , to volunteer time to staff it.

A. is unable, or either unwilling
B. is either unable or unwilling
C. are unable, or either unwilling
D. are either unable or unwilling
E. are unable or unwilling, either way

I'm confused between B and D, because 'The majority' will be singular.

P.S: Sir, sorry for such long post.

topper97, this probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but neither of those questions are official GMAT questions, and they're clearly of very dubious quality. As of about a decade ago, GMAC was spending somewhere between $1500 and $3000 developing each GMAT question. Even the best test-prep companies can't possibly compete with that -- and these particular questions clearly have flaws.

So just keep moving, and please don't worry about these two at all. They aren't worth even a minute of your precious study time.

Thank you for the kind words, @Shrindhi! Glad to hear that the explanations are helping.

I'm not sure that you're going to love my response to your questions, though. Honestly, there's no one-size-fits-all weekly study plan that I could recommend with a straight face. We don't even offer that sort of thing to our private students -- we basically evaluate their skills and weaknesses every week, and adapt their study plans constantly. So I can't offer a study plan that will definitely work over the next few months to achieve any specific goal for any specific person. Everybody is different, so everybody needs a different approach to their studies.

But I can recommend a few resources that might help you figure out what works best for you:

• A YouTube video we did called "Becoming your own GMAT tutor." Slides are available here if you want them.
• Check out bb 's 2018 study plan, with a lot of general advice to help you design your own plan of attack
• And this is a verbal-only study plan from a GMAT Club legend... but again, it's fairly broad, and is designed to help you figure out what works best for YOU.

I hope this helps a bit!

I’m not 100% sure that I’m interpreting your question correctly, but I’ll give it a shot, anyway!

When you say “shift of voice” in (C), are you talking about the passive voice used in the first half of the sentence? (C) gives us the passive phrase “coyotes are depicted as solitary animals… in films”, while (A) gives us a nice, active clause: “films… depict coyotes as solitary animals…”

It’s not WRONG, exactly, to use passive voice in this situation, but it’s also not ideal. Why not just directly say that the films depicted the coyotes in a certain way? That’s definitely better than the indirect, passive route in (C).

But as you said, (C) also has other issues, and that’s often the case in official SC questions that deal with passive vs. active voice. Passive voice isn’t strictly wrong, so it’s rarely the deciding factor on official questions – but if there isn’t a more significant decision point, then active voice is usually a better than passive voice.

I’m not sure if I addressed your question, but I hope this helps a bit, anyway!

Hi GMATNinja


The controversy has divided the Senate, causing strains in the commission, provoking public charges by industry officials that the banking chief is overreaching his authority, and private complaints that he is “reckless” and “stubborn.”

A.causing strains in the commission, provoking public charges by industry officials that the banking chief is overreaching his authority, and private complaints that he is “reckless” and “stubborn.”
B.causing strains in the commission and provoking public charges by industry officials that the banking chief is overreaching his authority, with private complaints that he is “reckless” and “stubborn.”
C.caused strains in the commission, and provoked public charges by industry officials that the banking chief is overreaching his authority and that private complaints that he is “reckless” and “stubborn.”
D.caused strains in the commission, provoked public charges by industry officials that the banking chief is overreaching his authority and private complaints that he is “reckless” and “stubborn.”
E.caused strains in the commission, and provoked public charges by industry officials that the banking chief is overreaching his authority and private complaints that he is “reckless” and “stubborn.”

This is one of the veritas prep questions.
But I found this question difficult because I could not understand the meaning of the sentence properly.
What I understood:
The controversy divided the senate
Result:1. Led to strains in commission
2. provoked public charges and private complaints.
The subject, controversy, is responsible for the actions. Hence the actions agree with the subject.
Hence these results make sense.

SO apart from the non existing conjunction "and", I couldn't find any error in this sentence.


In option b:
that the banking chief is overreaching his authority, with private complaints that he is “reckless” and “stubborn.”
the "with private complaints" implies that the banking chief is overreaching his authority with private complaints.
I BELIEVE THIS IS ILLOGICAL MEANING AND NOT CHANGE IN MEANING.
HENCE THIS OPTION IS INCORRECT.

IN option C, D and E, there is a change of meaning. Now I am comfortable with a change in meaning because the other options do not make sense.
But if an option stated:

causing strains in the commission, AND provoking public charges by industry officials that the banking chief is overreaching his authority, and private complaints that he is “reckless” and “stubborn.”

Would this them be correct and preferred over the the correct option E which states that the controversy did 3 things?


Thank you in advance for your help.

Regards
Nitesh

Hi GMATNinja

Insufficiently trained for combat, the soldier was grievously injured in battle and sank once again into unconsciousness, anesthetized by the medicine required by the many rounds of surgery necessary to save his badly wounded leg.

a) battle and sank once again into unconsciousness, anesthetized by
b) battle, sank once again into unconsciousness, and anesthetized
c) battle, sinking once again into unconsciousness, was anesthetized by
d) battle and sank once again into unconsciousness, and was anesthetized
e) battle, sinking once again into unconsciousness and being anesthetized by

This is again one of those questions that have really confused me.
An Verbed modifier may modify the preceding clause but it must make sense with the subject.

The correct option:
the process I use is I ask a question: who is responsible for action of "verb ed" modifier.

in Option A anesthetized by modifies the action sank.
It present the action of WHY.
But it doesnot make sense with the subject.
Who is responsible for the action of anesthizing: The medicine not Soldier.
Hence I feel the Choice A is not the answer.

Can you please give me some examples of Verb-ed modifier modifying the preceding clause?
And what is wrong in my reasoning in this question.


Looking forward to your reply.
Thank you for your time.

Regards
Nitesh

saurabh9gupta, I might be too late to be useful for you, but there’s a full article about the use of being here. And you can read a lengthy discussion about “having” in this post.

Sorry for my slowness, and I hope that these help!

GMATNinja

No you are not late.
I was hopeful that you will reply

Posted from my mobile device

Sorry saurabh9gupta, I should have answered this with the last one:
Honestly, I’ve never spent even a moment thinking about that construction (until now, anyway!), and I can't think of a reason why noun + preposition + participle would be wrong.

It doesn’t seem like something worth worrying about, but for whatever it’s worth, I can't think of a correct usage of it. (Though there are plenty of cases when you would use noun + preposition + gerund, which looks like the same thing. There's nothing wrong with the phrase "a champion in swimming" or "the pain of studying excessively" -- but in both cases, the "-ing" word is functioning as a noun, so it's a gerund, and not a participle.)

Actually, I'm not even sure why it would be a concern, and that probably means that I'm failing to think of an example of it that appears on the GMAT. Do you have something specific in mind? If so, let me know. Otherwise, it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that's worth losing sleep over...

This is a non-official question, so please don't spend too much time worrying about the specifics. But I think the sentence is defensible. If we strip it down a bit, we have: "the soldier... sank into unconsciousness, anesthetized by the medicine..." "Anesthetized" describes the soldier, right? He was the one that was actually "anesthetized by the medicine", and it's giving us more information about what happened when he sank into unconsciousness. Logically, that seems absolutely fine to me.

For more on "-ed" words, check out this article.

I hope this helps!

I'll start with the same comment as in my last post on this thread: this is a non-official question, and non-official questions aren't generally worth your precious study time for verbal. They're fine for quant, but will eventually lead you astray on verbal.

And in this particular case? Honestly, I don't think it's worth your time at all. For a vaguely similar issue, you might check out this classic question about a sloth.

“Too wordy” is not a great reason to eliminate answer choices, just because it’s completely subjective. So is “awkwardness.” Yes, the OGs use those terms in their explanations, but those explanations are written by random contractors who work for Wiley, often a decade or two after the original questions were written.

It’s much better to focus on errors of grammar, usage, or meaning; more on that in this article and this video.

And notice that you got to the right answer by focusing on other issues! That’s exactly what you should expect if you’re being sharp about grammar and meaning, and ignoring any subjective worries about “wordiness” or “awkwardness.”

Unfortunately, nothing in this part of your post looks correct. “The car costs be $10,000” and “the hotel rooms cost be $2000” are spectacularly incorrect sentences.

I’m not exactly sure what the disconnect is, but are you confused about the fact that the word “cost” could function as either a noun or a verb?

As a noun:

• The cost of pickles is already too high in Ukraine. → “cost” is a singular noun, and requires a singular verb (“is”)
• The costs associated with a government shutdown are often underestimated. → “costs” is a plural noun, and requires a plural verb (“are”)

As a verb:

• Pickles cost more than underwear in many developed countries. → “cost” is a verb… plural in this case, since the subject, “pickles”, is plural
• Underwear costs more than coffee at Japanese vending machines. → “costs” is a verb… singular in this case, because the subject, “underwear”, is singular

Does that help at all? I think it’s the only thing that could explain the issues you brought up, but I could be wrong.