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In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources

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Difficulty: 555-605 Level,   Meaning/Logical Predication,   Parallelism,                     
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AjiteshArun
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In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources [#permalink] In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources   02 Nov 2021, 21:46
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Hi gloomybison,
gloomybison
Q1) Why are we allowed to ignore adjective "expanding" but not preposition "from" ?
I could have been clearer there. We ignore the adjective only to make it easier to classify that structure. We definitely do not ignore it while reading the sentence for meaning. Here's an example of what I mean:

1. ... the travel industry is under increasing pressure to expand globally...

After the preposition under, we see a noun phrase (here, {adj} + {noun} + {infinitive}). When we say that we ignore the adjective, what we mean is that in this case the combination (adjective + noun) is considered a noun (phrase). That is, the adjective is irrelevant as far as the classification of that phrase is concerned. Here's another way to see this: If we were forced to choose only one of those three elements to follow under, would we go for "the industry is under {increasing}", "the industry is under {pressure}", or "the industry is under {to expand globally}"?

If we don't read the sentence correctly, if we assume that increasing is a gerund and that it is more important than pressure, we are no longer left with "the industry is under {pressure}". Instead, we get something like this:

2. ... the travel industry is under increasing pressure to expand globally...

That would be like saying this:

3. ... the travel industry is under the increasing of pressure to expand globally...

We could read the sentence like this, but we'd be left with the wrong meaning.

gloomybison
Q2) if we put preposition "from" before "changes in climate" in choice D would parallelism be correct?
because in D, since "changes in climate" lack a preposition, whereas, preceding and anteceding nouns have a preposition (from) it bugs the parallelism but if we add preposition to "changes in climate" it would fix the parallelism
In option D, there is no from before pollution, so adding a from before changes in climate wouldn't help at all.

If you were asking about option E instead, then yes, that would fix the parallelism problem, but it would make the sentence wordy (because of the unnecessary repetition of from). Of course, there is a meaning issue in E as well (the placement of the adjective future).

gloomybison
Q3) in answer D, "expanding development" is a simple gerund (ı guess) however "changes in climate" and "pollution" are action noun. How is it possible that action noun be parallel with an simple gerund?
I'm not a fan of that rule. In this case, however, we should stick to looking at expanding as an adjective, and expanding development as a noun phrase. This means that there is no problem at all, as expanding development is a noun (phrase), changes in climate is a noun (phrase), and pollution is a noun.
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Re: In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources [#permalink] In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources   05 Nov 2021, 13:39
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gloomybison
Q1) Why are we allowed to ignore adjective "expanding" but not preposition "from" ?

Q2) if we put preposition "from" before "changes in climate" in choice D would parallelism be correct?
because in D, since "changes in climate" lack a preposition, whereas, preceding and anteceding nouns have a preposition (from) it bugs the parallelism but if we add preposition to "changes in climate" it would fix the parallelism

Q3) in answer D, "expanding development" is a simple gerund (ı guess) however "changes in climate" and "pollution" are action noun. How is it possible that action noun be parallel with an simple gerund?
AjiteshArun
Mehemmed
I'm confused between D and E. I think D violates the parallelism: "from expanding development, changes in climate, and pollution". Shouldn't it be "from expanding development, changes in climate, and from pollution"?
We have a list of nouns in the correct option (D):
... from (a) expanding development, (b) changes in climate, and (c) pollution...

Remember to ignore expanding (participle) and in climate (prepositional phrase). Both are just adjectives for their respective nouns.

Option E gives us:
... from (a) expansion of development, (b) changes in climate, and (b) from pollution...

We're fine with expansion (noun) and changes (noun) in option E, at least as far as parallelism is concerned, but then we hit from pollution (prepositional phrase). This is unexpected, because we already have a from outside the list. So this option in like saying:
... from expansion of development, from changes in climate, and from from pollution...

Those two froms at the end of the list are a problem.

Mehemmed
Last but no least, I can't quite understand the use of "so that" in the sentence. As far as I know, "so that" implies intention. For example: "Yesterday, I went to bed early, so that I can get up early in the morning". Here "so that" shows my intention of sleeping early. Am I correct?
You are right. So that can be used to convey intention. However, it can also be used to discuss the outcome of something. Take the following sentence, for example:
He didn't show up for the movie so that we decided to watch it alone.

This example may sound a little (very?) weird, but it is correct. :)
I'll leave the specific questions here to Ajitesh, but wanted to chime in with a public service announcement: do not invent rules and do not overcomplicate your life with grammar jargon! :)

There is no rule that an action noun cannot be parallel to a simple gerund, and there is no benefit to knowing the difference between a simple and complex gerund.

There are only two simple rules in play here:

    1. If we see "both from X" there needs to be a second prepositional phrase that's parallel to the first, and those two prepositional phrases should be the only two elements in the construction. (Mostly likely, you'd see "both from X... and from Y.")

    2. It's fine to write "from X, Y, and, Z" or "from X, from Y, and from Z," but it's faulty parallelism to write "from X, Y, and from Z."

(A), (B), (C), and (E) all violate one (or both) of these rules. That leaves you with (D). No need to agonize over simple gerunds and action nouns.

I hope that clears things up!
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Re: In many of the worlds regions, increasing pressure on water resources [#permalink] In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources   25 Feb 2023, 19:05
Hi
AjiteshArun
GMATNinja

The word "the" seems to be missing in the correct option D. Can you please help explain why this is not an issue? I have come across questions where an option was incorrect due to the absence of the word "the".
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Re: In many of the worlds regions, increasing pressure on water resources [#permalink] In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources   01 Mar 2023, 14:03
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Vegita
Hi
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The word "the" seems to be missing in the correct option D. Can you please help explain why this is not an issue? I have come across questions where an option was incorrect due to the absence of the word "the".
The absence or presence of an article (such as "the") will create only a very very subtle meaning difference, so it's usually not a major decision point in GMAT questions. Generally speaking, you’re better off focusing on more concrete issues instead.

But can you be more specific here? Where do you think the word "the" should be, and why?
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Re: In many of the worlds regions, increasing pressure on water resources [#permalink] In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources   09 Mar 2023, 18:15
Hi GMATNinja

Thank you for your reply!

Quote:
But can you be more specific here? Where do you think the word "the" should be, and why?

I have a question in my error log which I had got wrong, and the reason was pretty much due to failing to notice the absence of "the" in the wrong options. So I thought "the" would be important in this case too. The future supply sounds more emphasized than future supplies.

*sorry couldn't be more specific than this.
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Re: In many of the worlds regions, increasing pressure on water resources [#permalink] In many of the world’s regions, increasing pressure on water resources   13 Mar 2023, 12:48
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Vegita
Hi [url=https://gmatclub.com:443/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&un=GMATNinja%5D%5Bb%5DGMATNinja%5B/b%5D%5B/url%5D

Thank you for your reply!

Quote:
But can you be more specific here? Where do you think the word "the" should be, and why?

I have a question in my error log which I had got wrong, and the reason was pretty much due to failing to notice the absence of "the" in the wrong options. So I thought "the" would be important in this case too. The future supply sounds more emphasized than future supplies.

*sorry couldn't be more specific than this.
The difference in meaning between a sentence such as "future supplies will be limited," and "the future supply will be limited," is so subtle that it's hard to come up with a scenario where the difference is all that meaningful.

I guess you could argue that "future supplies" is a more general statement, maybe covering multiple time periods, and "the future supply" is about a specific supply and time period. But there's no way I'd be comfortable using that as a decision point on an actual GMAT question. Both seem logical enough to me.

Here's a better takeaway than trying to remember when you'd use "the" and when you wouldn't: in the rare case that the word "the" does matter, it won't be because of grammar -- it'll be because of meaning.

So ask yourself, "Is one version more logical than the other? If the presence or absence of a "the" creates an incoherent meaning, okay, great, use it! But if it doesn't, or if you're not sure? Use anything else.

I hope that clears things up a bit!
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Re: In many of the worlds regions, increasing pressure on water resources [#permalink]
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