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In 1852 Robert Angus Smith published a detailed report of the chemistr

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Tanchat

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15 Jun 2022, 10:00

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GMATNinja AndrewN

1) What does "one" refer to ? a person or what?
2) could you pls explain why is (C) wrong? [Is it because of meaning changed?]

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Tanchat

GMATNinja AndrewN

1) What does "one" refer to ? a person or what?
2) could you pls explain why is (C) wrong? [Is it because of meaning changed?]

Hello, Tanchat. Always a pleasure to be mentioned alongside GMAT Ninja. Your intuition, perhaps, about one is accurate: in the context of the sentence, the only reasonable interpretation is someone, a general way of referring to a person (anybody, that is, not to a particular individual). Answer choice (C) is incorrect because it violates basic modifier usage: coming closer to town, the city air... Is city air drifting in to a town from some other place? Does city air, as a self-contained unit, undergo a metamorphosis as it approaches town air, such that the former becomes increasingly acidic? The grammar of the sentence forces the reader to pursue these silly interpretations. It would seem to make a lot more sense to say that as a person approached town, the city air grew more acidic [than the country or non-city air]. We should not have to work to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of a sentence, so answer choice (C) can fall by the wayside.

If one seems to refer to a person, then test the sentence with someone in its place; if it seems to refer to a non-human—e.g., a coin—then add the noun that one apparently refers to right after the word—e.g., one [coin]. In terms of diction, one is a little antiquated. In everyday conversation, native English speakers tend to use you instead. However, the GMAT™ seems less concerned about matters of high and low diction, fortunately, so this last issue is simply for your information.

Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew

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Hi Mike,

While I used the same logic and chose answer A as my option, the official Mock states Option A incorrect. As per them Option B is the correct answer, not sure why though.

Would be great if you could help.

Thank you!

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mikemcgarry

guerrero25

In 1852 Robert Angus Smith published a detailed report of the chemistry of rain in a large area around the city of Manchester, England, noting that the closer one came to town, the more the city air would become increasingly acidic.

A)that the closer one came to town, the more the city air would become increasingly acidic
B)that the city air became increasingly acidic the closer one came to town
C)that coming closer to town, the city air became increasingly acidic
D)that the more the city air became increasingly acidic, the closer one was to town
E)the city air becoming increasingly acidic as one would come closer to town

OA to follow

Dear guerrero25,
I'm happy to help with this.

This one is using a idiom that the GMAT loves. See this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gram ... mparisons/
The form of this idiom is
"the" [comparative][clause #1], "the" [comparative][clause #2]
This idiom implies causality --- it implies that the changing comparative in the first clause is responsible for the changing comparative in the second clause.

We need the word "that" following "noting", so (E) is wrong.

Choices (B) & (C) don't have the form, so they are wrong.

Choice (D) follows the idiom correctly, but the order is strange --- it almost seems to imply that making the air more acidic would cause us to move closer to Manchester. That's not the intended meaning, and it doesn't really make sense.

Choice (A) follows the idiom correctly, and it also has the correct order of causality. As we move closer to Manchester, a direct result of that action would be to encounter air that is more acidic. Choice (A) is the best answer.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

mike , Is A or B the correct answer ?

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Fido10

mikemcgarry

guerrero25

In 1852 Robert Angus Smith published a detailed report of the chemistry of rain in a large area around the city of Manchester, England, noting that the closer one came to town, the more the city air would become increasingly acidic.

A)that the closer one came to town, the more the city air would become increasingly acidic
B)that the city air became increasingly acidic the closer one came to town
C)that coming closer to town, the city air became increasingly acidic
D)that the more the city air became increasingly acidic, the closer one was to town
E)the city air becoming increasingly acidic as one would come closer to town

OA to follow

Dear guerrero25,
I'm happy to help with this.

mike , Is A or B the correct answer ?

Hello Fido10,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, B is the correct answer choice: Option A incorrectly uses the "would + simple present tense verb ("become in this sentence)" construction to refer to an event that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the "would + simple present tense verb" construction is used to refer to hypothetical future actions and habitual actions in the past.

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

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25 May 2023, 13:16

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A vs B.
I rejected A because of "would".

Would is generally used for talking about the future in the past.

published a detailed report - This means that he had published the actual data points of the experiment. So he is not hypothesizing. In his results, he noticed a co-relation. As X happened, Y happened. Hence B is much better.

If the sentence said "Based on his findings, the scientist PROPOSED ....." the use of WOULD might have been more apt.

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21 Jul 2023, 02:38

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On the basis of this question i marked A in the below question:
The architectural problem of how to enclose and articulate interior space becomes increasingly critical as the size of the space gets larger.

(a) increasingly critical as the size of the space gets larger
(b) ever more critical as the size of the space increases
(c) more and more critical as the size of the space will increase
(d) one that is increasingly critical as there is an increase in the size of the space
(e) more critical with the size of the space getting larger

The above question is from GMAT paper tests. Should i stop doing question from this source?

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Stanindaw

It's not entirely clear what you're asking, but I'll venture to say that we have to look at each question in its own right. We can't just memorize "correct" expressions and stick with them. For instance, in the example you're citing, A mentions a SIZE getting larger. A space or thing can get larger, but a size can't. Sizes themselves aren't big or small--they are measurements of how big or small something else is--so we have to cut A (and E). There's nothing inherently wrong with saying "increasingly X as Y happens"; it just doesn't apply here.

(And while the Paper Tests are definitely an old resource, they are fine to study from. The ways that individual GMAT question types work haven't really changed much.)

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In 1852 Robert Angus Smith published a detailed report of the chemistry of rain in a large area around the city of Manchester, England, noting that the closer one came to town, the more the city air would become increasingly acidic.

The use of the idiom is correctly explained in the Magoosh blog
Suppose A and B are two items or qualities or quantities, and we want to express how one of them changes as a result of the other one changing; that is, we want to express the interrelated nature of their changes. This is the formal structure of the idiom:

“the” (comparative adjective or adverb) (independent clause about A), “the” (comparative adjective or adverb) (independent clause about B)
Eg. The hotter the surface temperature of a star, the more light per square meter it radiates.
The higher they fly, the harder they fall.

Option Elimination -

(A) that the closer one came to town, the more the city air would become increasingly acidic - This sentence has two issues
1. The use of "would become" is wrong. The use of this subjective is for COUNTERFACTUAL/ HYPOTHETICAL or DOUBTFUL possibilities. Such as, "If I were you, I would explain the situation to her immediately." - COUNTERFACTUAL/ HYPOTHETICAL
or DOUBTFUL POSSIBILITIES - such as, "If I were to win a lottery, I finally would buy a car." Here, it's not Hypothetical but doubtful.
In this sentence, the air acidity increased in the past. It's neither COUNTERFACTUAL/ HYPOTHETICAL or DOUBTFUL.
2. More and increasingly are redundant. Both mean the same.

(B) that the city air became increasingly acidic the closer one came to town - Correct to use "past form" for what happened in the past. "one" is used as an "impersonal" or "generic pronoun" often used to refer to an unspecified person. In this sentence, "one" is used to refer to any person or observer who approaches the town, indicating that the observation holds true for anyone who comes closer to the town. It helps create a more general or impersonal tone in the sentence.

(C) that coming closer to town, the city air became increasingly acidic - the "coming closer to the town" modifier modifies "the air." As if the air is coming closer to the town. Here, the sentence means that "one" came closer to the town and not "air."

(D) that the more the city air became increasingly acidic, the closer one was to town - the opposite relationship. As explained above in Magoosh's example, this wrongly shows the second part as the result of 1st part.

(E) the city air becoming increasingly acidic as one would come closer to town - we need "that" after noting.

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AjiteshArun MartyMurray IanStewart Why option e) is wrong? Can you guys please explain

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AjiteshArun MartyMurray IanStewart Why option e) is wrong? Can you guys please explain

(E) the city air becoming increasingly acidic as one would come closer to town

1- "that" is missing after "noting".
2- "becoming" should be "became". We need a finite clause here. "the city air becoming" is non-finite.
3- "would come" should be "came".
4- "as" expresses somewhat an unnecessary causal relation between one's coming closer to town and the city air's becoming increasingly acidic.

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NakulDiwakar10

AjiteshArun MartyMurray IanStewart Why option e) is wrong? Can you guys please explain

thank you for your much detailed response

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07 Jan 2024, 06:46

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NakulDiwakar10

Why option e) is wrong? Can you guys please explain

Here's the (E) version:

In 1852 Robert Angus Smith published a detailed report of the chemistry of rain in a large area around the city of Manchester, England, noting the city air becoming increasingly acidic as one would come closer to town.

One issue is that "the city air becoming increasingly acidic" does not work logically with "would come closer."

The sentence should use similar finite verbs to convey that those two events occurred at the same time rather than use the continuous "becoming" with the finite "would come." As written, the sentence suggests that "becoming" was ongoing regardless of whether "would come" occurred as if they were just one ongoing event and a discrete event that happened to occur at the same time.

"Noting that the city air became increasingly acidic as one came closer to town" more clearly conveys the point to be made.

Another issue is that using "would" doesn't make sense here. "Would" serves no logical purpose, and there is no tense or mood involving the use of "would" that makes sense to use in this context. For example, "would come" could be habitual past, but the point to be made in this context is not that people habitually came closer to town.