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@: GMATNinjaTwo, MikeScarn, GMATNinja, hazelnut, generis:

Can someone explain why A is wrong

In this question comma+ Which is pointing to only "food processors" or "blenders and food processors"
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https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... t9998.html

as+adjective+plural+as , is wrong. this is purely idiomatic. if you want to use plural noun , we need, much, few, many little

as many good students as those come here
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Hi Experts, GMATNinja VeritasKarishma
DmitryFarber

I doubt how to use the idiom 'capable of' in the sentence of choices E.
Capable of should be followed by the verb to be (is, am, and are), but there is no verb to be in this sentence.

Many kitchens today are equipped with high-speed electrical gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.
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Many kitchens today are equipped with high-speed electrical gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.

(A) which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those -> "serious injuries" compared with some industrial cased "injuries", but "serious" is a comparable point. Meaning wise, it is not very clear. Incorrect.

(B) which can inflict serious injuries such as those -> "such as" is used for examples. Incorrect.

(C) inflicting injuries as serious as that having been -> "having been" do we injuries, right now.

(D) capable to inflict injuries as serious as that -> "that" is a singular pronoun for injuries (plural subject). Incorrect.

(E) capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those -> This is better than A and we are comparing only "serious" to something.

So, I think E. :)
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A big key to this question is the pronoun “those.” It’s a plural pronoun (also called a demonstrative pronoun if you like grammar jargon; “that” is the singular version, and it’s discussed in this article), and your best bet is to reread the sentence, replacing “those” with the plural noun it refers to.

With that in mind…

Quote:
(A) which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those
Well, the pronoun seems to be OK. “Those” seems to refer to the most recent plural, “injuries”, so that gives us: “… kitchen gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are able to inflict as serious injuries as [the injuries] caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.”

Trouble is, the phrase “…are able to inflict as serious injuries as…” isn’t quite right. We’re trying to emphasize the severity of the potential injuries from kitchen gadgets, so “injuries as serious as” would be much better than “as serious injuries as.” Actually, the latter version just doesn’t quite make sense.

You could also argue that the use of “which” isn’t ideal here. In general, modifiers beginning with “which” modify the immediately preceding noun. That isn’t an absolute rule, but I think there’s arguably some ambiguity in the phrase “… kitchen gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are…” Is this trying to say that kitchen gadgets in general can inflict serious injury, or just the food processors? The intent is clearly the former, but the “which” phrase MIGHT make that meaning a little bit muddy.

And even if you don’t believe a single word of that last paragraph, the “injuries as serious as” thing is pretty darned bad. Let’s eliminate (A).

Quote:
(B) which can inflict serious injuries such as those
(B) sounds pretty good! But it’s wrong anyway.

The phrase “such as” introduces examples, so if we say that kitchen gadgets “ can inflict serious injuries such as [the injuries] caused by an industrial wood-planing machine”, that’s literally saying that kitchen gadgets inflict exactly the same injuries as a wood-planing machine. And that’s not quite right: we want to say that the injuries inflicted by kitchen gadgets are just as serious – not that they’re exactly the same injuries.

So (B) is gone.

Quote:
(C) inflicting injuries as serious as that having been
This is a mess. For starters, the “-ing” modifier “inflicting” no longer suggests that the kitchen gadgets CAN inflict serious injuries; now the sentence implies that the kitchen gadgets ACTUALLY inflict serious injuries, and that’s not quite what the sentence is trying to say.

More importantly, the word “that” is used as a singular pronoun in (C), and it has no logical referent. (Again, for more on the GMAT’s many uses of the word “that”, check out this article.) Plus, I have no idea why we would use “having been” in this situation.

We can eliminate (C).

Quote:
(D) capable to inflict injuries as serious as that
You might know that I’m not really a proponent of studying idioms, but for whatever it’s worth: “capable to inflict” is a pretty crappy version of “capable of inflicting.”

But as is often the case on the GMAT, you can avoid the idiom entirely if you’re paying close attention to the other stuff. In this case, we have the singular pronoun “that” again, and it once again has no logical referent, since there are no singular nouns earlier in the sentence.

So even if you totally ignore the idiom, you can safely eliminate (D).

Quote:
(E) capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those
(E) is awfully similar to (D), except that we have a better idiom (“capable of inflicting” is better than “capable to inflict”), and now the pronoun (“those”) is plural. “Those” seems to refer to the most recent plural, “injuries”, so that gives us: “… high-speed electrical gadgets… capable of inflicting injuries as serious as the injuries caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.”

Hey, that’s clear as a bell. (E) is our answer.



CAN YOU EXPLAIN ME THAT: is "capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those " is a verb-ing modifier? @e-gmat can you please help? I am unable to understand the construction.
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Many kitchens today are equipped with high-speed electrical gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.


(A) which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those
blenders and food processors are able to inflict as serious injuries as not correct meaning

(B) which can inflict serious injuries such as those
wrong comparision that injuries are such as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine, but we intend to compare seriousness of both kind of injuries.

(C) inflicting injuries as serious as that having been
We have no requirement of any modifier

(D) capable to inflict injuries as serious as that
we have plural subject injuries

(E) capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those
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E. It keeps the same verb tense and cleans up the grammar.
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ERROR ANALYSIS -

1) Use of 'as serious injuries as those' - words after 'as' - not similar

ANSWER CHOICE ANALYSIS -

A) Use of 'as serious injuries as those' - words after 'as' - not similar
B) 'such as' - is always used to present examples
C) Changes the meaning - 'able to inflict' changes to certainty 'inflicting', Use of 'as serious injuries as those' - words after 'as' - not similar
D) 'capable to' is idiomatically wrong
E) CORRECT - concise compared to A

ANSWER - E
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Hi Experts, GMATNinja VeritasKarishma
DmitryFarber

I doubt how to use the idiom 'capable of' in the sentence of choices E.
Capable of should be followed by the verb to be (is, am, and are), but there is no verb to be in this sentence.

Many kitchens today are equipped with high-speed electrical gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.

Expert I have the same doubt. What kind of structure is this in option E?

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Hmm, there is definitely not a rule that "capable of" must be followed by a "to be" verb. In fact, that wouldn't work at all. We are capable of SOMETHING--either a regular noun or an activity:

*Juan is capable of great kindness.
*I am capable of tying my own shoes.


Answer choice (E) correctly uses the second version, using an activity. If you are "capable of inflicting," it just means you can inflict. So kitchens are equipped with gadgets that can inflict injuries. AbhishekDhanraJ72 Does that cover your question, or was it relating to a different element?
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AbhishekDhanraJ72
BenjaminS
Hi Experts, GMATNinja VeritasKarishma
DmitryFarber

I doubt how to use the idiom 'capable of' in the sentence of choices E.
Capable of should be followed by the verb to be (is, am, and are), but there is no verb to be in this sentence.

Many kitchens today are equipped with high-speed electrical gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.

Expert I have the same doubt. What kind of structure is this in option E?

Posted from my mobile device

Hello AbhishekDhanraJ72,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "capable to be" is not actually an idiomatic construction; the correct, idiomatic construction is "capable + of + something"; this something is usually a present participle ("verb+ing" - "inflicting" in this sentence) that refers to an action.

"capable + of" can also be followed by a noun, when the presence of the present participle is implied - for example, "You are capable of (doing) great things."

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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DmitryFarber
Hmm, there is definitely not a rule that "capable of" must be followed by a "to be" verb. In fact, that wouldn't work at all. We are capable of SOMETHING--either a regular noun or an activity:

*Juan is capable of great kindness.
*I am capable of tying my own shoes.


Answer choice (E) correctly uses the second version, using an activity. If you are "capable of inflicting," it just means you can inflict. So kitchens are equipped with gadgets that can inflict injuries. AbhishekDhanraJ72 Does that cover your question, or was it relating to a different element?

Thank you. It helped.

Posted from my mobile device
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Many kitchens today are equipped with high-speed electrical gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.


(A) which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those

(B) which can inflict serious injuries such as those

(C) inflicting injuries as serious as that having been

(D) capable to inflict injuries as serious as that

(E) capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those



In this can we not say that between "can" and "able" we prefer can and thus eliminate cap"able" - option D and E. There was one question in SC, will have to find, where option stating interchange"able" was rejected for the same reason
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Rickooreo
Many kitchens today are equipped with high-speed electrical gadgets, such as blenders and food processors, which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those caused by an industrial wood-planing machine.


(A) which are able to inflict as serious injuries as those

(B) which can inflict serious injuries such as those

(C) inflicting injuries as serious as that having been

(D) capable to inflict injuries as serious as that

(E) capable of inflicting injuries as serious as those



In this can we not say that between "can" and "able" we prefer can and thus eliminate cap"able" - option D and E. There was one question in SC, will have to find, where option stating interchange"able" was rejected for the same reason

Hello Rickooreo,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, no; we cannot make such an elimination.

"can inflict" is more direct than "capable of inflicting", making it the preferable phrase, but this is not a strong enough reason to eliminate E; remember, redundancy, wordiness, and other stylistic issues are the least important factors on GMAT; they should only be taken into account in order to select between otherwise entirely error-free options.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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