If Dr. Wade was right, any apparent connection of the eating of highly

Three reasons that C is wrong:

1. The intended meaning is "connection between X and Y", and not "apparent between X and Y".
2. "Connection that is apparent" is more wordy than "apparent connection".
3. Connection between X and Y: X = eating of highly processed food, Y = excelling at sport. X is a complex gerund whereas Y is a simple gerund. A complex gerund cannot be parallel to a simple gerund.

The difference between a simple gerund and comlex gerund is difficult to detect: Thumb rule - a complex gerund generally has a preposition after it, a definite article before it or both.

The hoisting of national flag: compound gerund.
Hoisting national flag: simple gerund.

Whereas the complex gerunds can be parallel to "action nouns", the simple gerunds can be parallel to "concrete" nouns. However these two groups cannot be parallel to each other.

The OA is D indeed... I picked A didn't see any idioms as it wasn't the focus of my h/w... and I am not good with idioms anyways...


I wanted to briefly disscuss the CONDITIONALS and the TENSES that practically give the wrong answers away... you might know it already, but review is always helpful (feel free to add what you know on this matter)!
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Conditional Sentences are known as Conditional Clauses or "If" Clauses. They are used to express that the action in the main clause (without if) can only take place if a certain condition (in the clause with if) is fulfilled.

There are 3 Types of those:

Type 1
It is possible and also very likely that the condition will be fulfilled. We don't know for sure whether the condition actually will be fulfilled or not, but the conditions seems rather realistic – so we think it is likely to happen.

Formula: if + Simple Present, will-Future

Example: If I go to Ireland, I will visit Dublin.

Type 2
It is possible but very unlikely, that the condition will be fulfilled. Conditional Sentences Type II refer to situations in the present. An action could happen if the present situation were different. I don't really expect the situation to change, however. I just imagine „what would happen if …“

Formula: if + Simple Past, Conditional I (= would + Infinitive)

Example: If I went to Ireland, I would visit Dublin. (I felt this one sounded kind of awkward, but I guess gramatically correct)

Type 3
It is impossible that the condition will be fulfilled because it refers to the past. Conditional Sentences Type III refer to situations in the past. An action could have happened in the past if a certain condition had been fulfilled. Things were different then, however. We just imagine, what would have happened if the situation had been fulfilled.

Formula: if + Past Perfect, Conditional II (= would + have + Past Participle)

Example: If I had gone to Ireland, I would have visited Dublin.

REMEMBER:
1)"WOULD/WILL" never appears in the "IF" clause and you can easily eliminate choices based on that fact!!!
2) If the tense is PRESENT SIMPLE, then, the condition is likely to be either PAST SIMPLE or FUTURE SIMPLE, NOT anything else, meaning the tenses should be parallel (If PAST PERFECT -> Then PRESENT PERFECT) etc
3) Do NOT go by "what sounds right"... YOU WILL get it wrong... So if this subject is your weak area (like it was mine) never go by this rule!
4) If I WERE blah..., the blah... many know this rule (i didn't, it thought it was SVA )

if you want practice quizzes, here is the link:
https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/if.htm

please add more...

DISCLAIMER: some of you know that I am doing GMAX, but this is NOT their material... this is my own efforts of Google search to get more info on the subject!

After answering the aforementioned question could you please answer the following:

1) What is the tense of "be" - past tense, present tense or ?? I recognize that it is passive voice....

2) Why would this not be a "hypothetical" situation and hence the usage of "was" would automatically be wrong, no? I guess i'm confused as to what you'd call a hypothetical situation [which requires the need for If i were (Vs using was) you....] and why isnt the hypothetical case applicable here.

shoot is not in present tense. It is accompanied by would (model verb).

It is simple.

2 forms, sunjunctive and indictive

indictive means, the possibility is very high.

Indictive - why and reason... cause and effect...
If you score high in GMAT, you will be selected in a business school.

subjuctive, possibility is low or rare...hypotheical....

If I had scored high in GMAT, I would had been selected in a business school.
If you were a king, youwould have ruled the whole world.

Meaning, some condition that is hypothical.

But if the whole sentence is in present tense, it need to maintain the tense.

be is present
was is past
been is future...

in this present question, we are saying that if Dr. wade is right, the situation will happen or will not happen...
Dr. Wade has already proven it...

If you want to convert it to sunjunctive then

If Dr. Wade were right, any apperent connection between X and Y would be purely coincidental.
OR
Had Dr. Wade been right, any apperent connection between X and Y would had been purely coincidental.

Hope it helps.

this purely a conditional but not a subjunctive (hypothetical or contrary to fact) one. e.g.

if it were a subjunctive, it would have "were" as verb in the first clause.
it is not a subjunctive, it is perfectly ok with is as verb in the first clause.

So, D is correct.

Hi all, my doubt is,
1) Isn't excelling at sports a complex gerund? For example, drinking of the water.
2) Are complex gerunds always in the from of an Of-phrase?

Hi there,


(1). Complex gerund is "The excelling at sports" and not "excelling at sports". Furthermore,

Often the construction of CG is "Article -Ing Preposition", but you cannot generalize it( This answers your second doubt)\

Excelling at sports is a simple gerund because we can use it as:

I am excelling at sports

Simple gerunds are Verb-like as shown above.

Complex gerunds are noun-like that is why when we want to adhere to parallelism , we make Complex Gerund parallel to action nouns not the simple gerunds parallel to action nouns.


Hope that helps!

A. 'eating of' is wrong
B. 'connection of' is wrong
C. 'eating of' is wrong
D. sounds fine; uses the idiom (between... and...) and parallelism (eating... excelling..) correctly
E. perfect tense is wrong as the main clause uses simple present 'is coincidental'

can any one explain why c is wrong. it corrects the Dr wade WAS to IS. secondly use proper idiom between thirdly the parallelism is ok "eating of" and "excelling at". and fourth "connection this is apparent" is also fine and is equal to "apparent connection"

In official guide they have given below reason why E is incorrect:

Should Dr. Wade have been right should not be followed by the present
indicative verb is.

Can you pls explain this more

KARISHMA315, the idea is that the clauses should match. "Should Dr. Wade have been right" introduces a conditional that should be followed by "any connection . . would have been coincidental" (if we're talking about a past connection) or "would be coincidental" (if we're talking about a current/future connection).
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Got it correct but still thinking about why "eating" which is a verb is parallel to a gerund "excelling"?

Or maybe I am a doing a mistake of thinking "eating" as a verb instead of a "modifier"?

AndrewN

If Dr. Wade was right, any apparent connection of the eating of highly processed foods and excelling at sports is purely coincidental.

The scentence intended to convey the meaning that if Dr.wade was right, the connection between eating highly processed foods and excelling at sports is coincidental)

(A) If Dr. Wade was right, any apparent connection of the eating of

(1."of the eating" does not make sense; 2. "of the eating... and excelling at sports" does not comply with parallelism; 3."between" should be the right word in the context. Eliminate)

(B) Should Dr. Wade be right, any apparent connection of eating (This expresssion is awkward and not idiomatic, eliminate)

(C) If Dr. Wade is right, any connection that is apparent between eating of (as an adjective, "apparent" should refer to connection, so it needs to be placed before connection. eliminate)

(D) If Dr. Wade is right, any apparent connection between eating

(E) Should Dr.Wade have been right, any connection apparent between eating (Same reason as choice C. Also, the use of perfect tense is awkward)

Dear Experts,

Apart from wordier in (C), the main reason to eliminate is “eating of”, right? : eating highly processed foods conveyed the meaning “eat processed food” but eating of highly processed foods conveyed the meaning “processed foods is a subject that perform action of “eat”” Then, (C) is wrong. Am I correct?

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Hello Tanchat,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, no; your reasoning is not exactly correct here; Option C actually leads to an incoherent meaning, as it uses the simple gerund "eating"; to convey the intended meaning, a complex gerund - one preceded by a preposition - is needed.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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ExpertsGlobal5

Thank you for the response. But I do still not understand. What is difference between the meaning of (C) and the meaning of (D)?

Also, what is difference between “eat” and “eating of”?

Hello Tanchat,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, due to the construction of the phrase "between eating of", Option C actually produces an incoherent meaning.

Further, "eat" is an active verb, and "eating of" is a present participle ("verb+ing") phrase that acts as a gerund.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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