MAGOOSH free GMAT Idiom ebook

Thanks Mike, Fantastic approach and artistic way to deal with Idioms

Thanks Mike. The categorization of the topics is excellent. A well deserved kudos for a well deserved book.

Contents are very well organized.
Thanks for sharing.

Hi Mike,
You have discussed "For Every X, Y" on page 91. I am unable to understand how come X & Y are nouns in the below mentioned sentences. Kindly explain what 2 things are we comparing in the sentences and are the compared things parallel.

For every dollar Roscoe Corporation spends on R & D, Utica Central spends seven dollars.
For every vote McCormick wins in the Midwest with this new strategy, he stands to lose two or three in the Northeast and in California.
For every 10% increase in the value of x, y increases 25%.

Eagerly waiting to read your valuable explanation.

Fame

Hi Mike,

I'm going through the book right now, and I'm struggling with a sentence on page 20. You've quoted as correct example the below sentence:

Because of the uncertainty surround the new tax law being debated in Congress, the stocks dropped for a third consecutive day.

Did you mean to say that this sentence is wrong and needs to be rewritten? Not quite clear here. Looking forward to your reply.

Thanks, Mike. The book is great for understanding idioms rather than blindly memorizing them.

Hi Mike,

Question #2 on the quiz on page 50:

Attributing the unprecedented drought to changes in the solar cycle, the research team failed to account for/take account of the influence of any terrestrial culprits, namely our destruction of rainforests and our unbridled consumption of gasoline.

The answer key says that 'account for' is the right one. I wonder how. The meaning of the sentence is that the terrestrial culprits too have caused changes in the solar cycle, a point missed to be noted by the research team. In that case, shouldn't the correct answer be 'take account of'?

'account for' means reason for an event. So by using 'account for' in that slot, the sentence wrongly conveys the meaning that the research team is after the reasons for the influence of the terrestrial culprits. Isn't it? Am I wrongly interpreting this? Please kindly help me see the difference between 'account for' and 'take account of'!

Thanks very much.

Dear donkadsw,
I'm happy to help. The answer given in the text is correct.

to take account of = to notice, to acknowledge

to account for = to give an explanation for, to include in one's explanatory scheme

If we said "... the research team failed to take account of the influence of ..." , this means the team didn't notice the influence, was not aware its existence. This is not quite the intended meaning.

If we said "... the research team failed to account for the influence of ..." , this means they did not include these influences as part of their explanation. This is the meaning of the sentence.

Does this make sense?
Mike

Dear donkadsw.
Thank you for going through the book so thoroughly and pointing this out. This indeed is a mistake. The correct sentence should say:

Because of the uncertainty surrounding the new tax law being debated in Congress, the stocks dropped for a third consecutive day.

We will make this edit in the ebook soon. Thank you again for pointing it out.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I am not able to access the practice questions at the links provided in the e-book. Are they intended to be available with the e-book? For example, the below links point to nothing.

Page 47, practice question, https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1103
Page 54, practice, https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1173

Thanks in advance!

Dear donkadsw,
Thank you very much for pointing this out. We will be updating those links in a few days. In the mean time, here are the corrected links.

1) On page 47, the link https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1103 is given,
and should be replaced with
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3215

2) On page 54, the link https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1173 is given,
and should be replaced with:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3264

3) On page 61, the link https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1149 is given,
and should be replaced with:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3290

Mike

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