pqhai wrote:
Hi Mike.
Thank you for your explanation. It does help. I'm still wondering why the syntax "may be possible" is used quite often even in official writing? According to American English in general and GMAT field in particular, is the syntax considered redundant? I just pay my attention to GMAT/American English.
Please kindly confirm.
Thank you in advance.
Dear
pqhai,
I'm happy to respond.
Here, we are getting into a level of logical hair-splitting far beyond anything the GMAT would test.
In some scenarios, we know with certainty that something is a possibility. If I draw 5 cards from a full 52-card deck, it is possible, though unlikely, that I will draw a straight. It may not happen, even on ten tries, but it definitely is always a possibility. BTW, the exact probability is about 0.0039. In this scenario, the phrase "
may be possible" would be entirely redundant.
In other scenarios, in which the future is unknown, it even the array of possibilities might be unknown. For example:
When we travel for three hours in the snow and get to the isolated cabin, it may be possible to call the nearest town.
In other words, in that scenario, we don't know whether the land-line phone in the cabin will be operational when we arrive. If the phone is operational, then calling the nearest town will be a possibility, but before we arrive, we don't know the state of the phone. In such scenarios, the phrase "
may be possible" would definitely not be redundant --- it would be accurate.
Now, in the SC question above, is the array of possibilities already determined, and we just don't know which result will arise within this fixed array? Or is the array itself in question? That's not clear to me. I just suggested the possibility of redundancy as an attempt to create any meaningful split among the answer choices. I think the question is predicated on splits far less sophisticated than what we are discussing here.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)