The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way : Sentence Correction (EA only)

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kunaldutt15

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

30 Dec 2019, 04:36

daagh wrote:

Kunal
Can you please explain why 'like' is being used wrongly in this case. After all, like is comparing two nouns and that is it precise purpose. In other words, may I know when 'like ' should be used, if not while comparing nouns?
It is the same way, in the cited example. Like is comparing a computer with an expert, two nouns. and what is wrong with that? It will be better if you say also why you suspect it and what is the reason behind your own perception about the use of like or when it is wrong. Please elaborate.

Hi daagh,

Apologies for not elaborating earlier. I believe the usage of "like" is absolutely correct in option C of this question since it compares 2 nouns. However, I noticed that the official solution states that the usage is incorrect in this case. Please refer to the official solution below (posted by someone in a post above).

"Official Explanation

Rhetorical Construction; Diction

While the use of hopefully, as used in the sentence as written, to mean I hope that or let's hope that, is well established, this use is considered to be informal. For this reason, it is generally avoided in writing.

When it is used in this way in writing, however, it must be used at the beginning of a sentence or at the beginning of an independent clause, and be set off by the use of commas. In any case, the use of hopefully in this sentence is incorrect: in a technical sense, it implies that the enabling of the astronomers will be hopeful.

A. The use of hopefully here is incorrect, for the reasons given above.

B. Correct. The use of it is hoped (as opposed to hopefully) here properly conveys the intended meaning of the sentence. Furthermore, the use of in the way appropriately conveys, unlike the answer choices using like or such as, that what is being compared is the interaction, or lack thereof, of gravity waves, on one hand, and electromagnetic waves, on the other, with matter.

C. The use of like incorrectly implies that electromagnetic waves are a type of matter. Furthermore, the use of hopefully is incorrect, for the reasons given above.

D. The use of like incorrectly implies that electromagnetic waves are a type of matter. Furthermore, the use of hopefully is incorrect, for the reasons given above.

E. The use of such as is inappropriate here: first, such as must be followed by a noun, or list of nouns, rather than a noun followed by a verb, as in electromagnetic waves do; second, the use of like incorrectly implies that electromagnetic waves are a type of matter.

The correct answer is B."

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

02 Jan 2020, 14:22

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kunaldutt15 wrote:

EMPOWERgmatVerbal wrote:

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow down our options quickly so we know how to answer questions like this when they pop up on the GMAT! To begin, let's take a quick look at the question and highlight any major differences between the options in orange:

The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way electromagnetic waves do, hopefully will enable astronomers to study the actual formation of black holes and neutron stars.

A. in the way electromagnetic waves do, hopefully will enable
B. in the way electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable
C. like electromagnetic waves, hopefully will enable
D. like electromagnetic waves, would enable, hopefully
E. such as electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable

After a quick glance over the options, we have 2 main areas we can focus our attention on to narrow down our choices:

1. in the way / like / such as
2. hopefully will enable / will, it is hoped, enable / would enable, hopefully

Let's start with #1 on our list: in the way / like / such as. Each of these are used for different things, so we need to make sure they are used correctly in terms of both idiom structure and parallelism. To make this easier to spot, I've added in the first part of the phrase:

A. which do not interact with matter in the way electromagnetic waves do, hopefully will enable = CORRECT
(compares how matter interacts with how electromagnetic waves interact, which is parallel)

B. which do not interact with matter in the way electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable = CORRECT
(compares how matter interacts with how electromagnetic waves interact, which is parallel)

C. which do not interact with matter like electromagnetic waves, hopefully will enable = WRONG
(compares how matter interacts to electromagnetic waves, which is not parallel - you must compare actions to actions, not actions to things)

D. which do not interact with matter like electromagnetic waves, would enable, hopefully = WRONG
(compares how matter interacts to electromagnetic waves, which is not parallel - you must compare actions to actions, not actions to things)

E. which do not interact with matter such as electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable = WRONG
("such as" is ONLY used to provide examples of something; electromagnetic waves are not an example of matter, so this doesn't work)

We can eliminate options C, D, & E because they either use the wrong idiom or use non-parallel comparisons.

Now that we have it narrowed down to only 2 options, let's explore them more closely to find their differences and consider which one is the better choice. To make problems easier to spot, let's add in the non-underlined parts:

A. The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way electromagnetic waves do, hopefully will enable astronomers to study the actual formation of black holes and neutron stars.

This is INCORRECT because the use of "hopefully" is problematic. It's an adverb that isn't being used as an adverb, which is wrong. It actually suggests that the astronomers enabling is hopeful, not that someone else hopes that the astronomers will be enabled to study black holes and neuron stars.

B. The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable astronomers to study the actual formation of black holes and neutron stars.

This is CORRECT! It fixes the "hopefully" problem in option D, and uses a parallel comparison.

There you have it - option D is the correct choice!

Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

Hi EMPOWERgmatVerbal,

I am confused about the usage of "like" here. I encountered a similar usage of "like" in a different question. Would you mind going through the question in the link below and helping me understand why it is correct in that question and incorrect in this one? I am not sure but I might be missing something here.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/proponents-of-artificial-intelligence-say-they-will-be-able-to-make-co-17516.html

Thanks,
Kunal

Hi kunaldutt15

In the question you linked to, the phrases "like an expert" and "as an expert does" are tricky. There's a meaning issue here:

like an expert = comparing computers and experts = OKAY
as an expert does = computer is doing something at the same time as the expert = WRONG

The word "as" can sometimes be used to compare two nouns performing actions, but it can also be used to show that two actions happen at the same time. In this case, it's better to use "like" because it creates a clear comparison, whereas "as" could mean either option.

I hope that helps! Feel free to tag me at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

06 Feb 2020, 10:29

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kunaldutt15 wrote:

I understand that "hopefully" is not acceptable in GMAT. But, is the use of "like" correct in option C? I believe Its comparing "gravity waves" with "electromagnetic waves".

Thanks in advance.
Kunal

Hello Kunal/kunaldutt15,

I am aware that you have gotten a couple of responses to this query. However, here is the explanation of what the official explanation says about the usage of like in Choice C.

In Choice C, the noun electromagnetic waves has been compared to the noun matter and not gravity waves. It is so because the word like is directly preceded by the noun matter.

To compare electromagnetic waves correctly with gravity waves, there must be a comma before the word like. Then only the noun after the word like, in this case electromagnetic waves, will be compared to the subject, in this case which = gravity waves. So yes, the usage of like in Choice C prsents illogical comparison.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

28 Jun 2020, 08:56

Hopefully is not inmediately incorrect, and here is a definition by Oxford dictionary that is in line with the OE:

hopefully

1) Used to express what you hope will happen*

E.g. Hopefully, we'll arrive before dark.

*Although this is the most common use of hopefully, it is a fairly new use and some people think it is not correct.

2) Showing hope

E.g. Are you free tonight?’ she asked hopefully.

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

Updated on: 01 Jul 2020, 20:33

Dear AjiteshArun DmitryFarber GMATRockstar GMATGuruNY IanStewart MartyTargetTestPrep VeritasPrepHailey GMATNinja,

Is choice A. wrong because of the placement of "hopefully"?

I mean if choice A. were:

The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way electromagnetic waves do, ~~hopefully~~ will HOPEFULLY enable astronomers to study the actual formation of black holes and neutron stars.

Would the above be correct?

I've got this idea from an example in https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/hopefully:
By then the problem will hopefully have been solved.

Originally posted by kornn on 01 Jul 2020, 20:20.
Last edited by kornn on 01 Jul 2020, 20:33, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

Updated on: 12 Apr 2021, 12:40

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varotkorn wrote:

Dear VeritasPrepBrian VeritasPrepHailey AnthonyRitz AjiteshArun DmitryFarber IanStewart GMATGuruNY MartyTargetTestPrep GMATRockstar GMATNinja,

Quote:

But because the gravity waves are inanimate, they can't "hopefully" do anything...that would require them to have hope! "It is hoped" removes that direct tie to the subject and verb, so it's then open to some human entity to have the hope, which is more more logical.

According to an example in https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/hopefully:
By then the problem will hopefully have been solved.

"the problem" is an inanimate object and can't have hope. Yet "the problem" is used together with "hopefully."
I'm very confused here.

Please help

The first thing to note is that this question is 32+ years old. The GMAT has, over the years, moved away from idiom and fine-line diction distinctions, and I'm quite confident that this question's A-versus-B split would not pass muster on the modern GMAT. I strongly suggest sticking to questions from after 2009, since my understanding is that's approximately when GMAC changed vendors writing its verbal content, and stuff before that date is open to some degree of question in a few cases.

And even if this usage of "hopefully" would have been totally wrong when this question was written, 32 years is also a long time for usage to evolve. For instance, the singular indefinite "they" is now accepted by every major English dictionary, but I'm willing to guess that this was not the case in 1988. The word "hopefully" has, in more recent years, increasingly been used to mean "it is hoped." As Mizar18 says, above,

Mizar18 wrote:

Hopefully is not inmediately incorrect, and here is a definition by Oxford dictionary that is in line with the OE:

hopefully

1) Used to express what you hope will happen*

E.g. Hopefully, we'll arrive before dark.

*Although this is the most common use of hopefully, it is a fairly new use and some people think it is not correct.

Even your very own citation, from a dictionary I do not know, says this before including the example you gave:

Quote:

a way of saying what you hope will happen, which some people think is incorrect

So your fix wouldn't really change much for the sticklers who object to this usage.

The best basis I can give you for eliminating A, here in 2020, is that, given the two potential usages of "hopefully," A may create some degree of ambiguity that is definitely not present in the very good answer B.

Anyway, the real point is this: Although there are certainly still "hopefully" absolutists out there, I think that this usage has become common and accepted enough that we would never, in 2020, rest a GMAT wrong answer directly on it. (However, note that it is also still controversial enough that I strongly suspect that the GMAT would never put this usage in a correct answer, either.)

Originally posted by AnthonyRitz on 01 Jul 2020, 21:30.
Last edited by bb on 12 Apr 2021, 12:40, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

02 Jul 2020, 06:41

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This is a really old problem, and I'd be surprised if anything similar appeared on the test now. "Hopefully" has two definitions -- it can mean "in a hopeful way", or something like "I hope that". Strict grammarians used to insist that only the first of those two meanings was correct. But the second meaning is now so common that I'd be surprised if many people (including the GMAT) still considered it incorrect. Language evolves, and it's how we use words that determines what is "correct" and "incorrect".

Because "hopefully" has two definitions, though, using the word can create ambiguity. In the sentence:

If we hear a report that Halley's Comet is coming, we will hopefully look to the night sky.

that could mean: "we will look to the sky with hope" (hoping to see the comet)
or it could mean "I hope we will look to the sky" (i.e. I hope we will look for the comet instead of doing something else altogether)

That ambiguity disappears if you replace the word "hopefully" with a more precise phrase. But I don't think there's any chance a contemporary GMAT SC question will test this distinction.

If you're quoting posts from another forum, could you please indicate their author? For one thing, people should be credited for what they wrote, and for another, it helps anyone reading the forum here to judge whether the quote is worth reading.

edit: I just noticed Anthony posted a reply while I was writing mine -- I agree with everything he says above.

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

10 Sep 2020, 12:29

I have seen various replies, about the exception usage of hope/hopefully.
But here in the correct option, a whole independent clause is placed(there is a subject - it - and also verb - is hoped)with just a comma after will. How is it correct?
Also why the antecedent of "it" not an issue here?

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

21 Sep 2020, 16:06

FYI — this question is in the advanced OG 2020

Now can anyone explain why hopefully is incorrect?

Posted from my mobile device

AjiteshArun GMATNinja hey guys, please help

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

21 Sep 2020, 20:17

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INSEADIESE wrote:

FYI — this question is in the advanced OG 2020

Now can anyone explain why hopefully is incorrect?

AjiteshArun GMATNinja hey guys, please help

Hi INSEADIESE,

Some (very few!) people believe that the proper meaning of hopefully is ~"in a way that expresses hope" and not ~"it is hoped that". For example:

1. Hopefully, our team will win. ← Those people would feel that this sentence means "our team will win expressing hope" or "our team will win in a manner that expresses hope", whereas what we want to say is "it is hoped that/we hope that our team will win".

2. {something}... hopefully will enable... ← Here the hopefully is not even before the clause. Some people may choose to interpret this as "something will enable in a hopeful manner" and not "it is hoped that something will enable".

Needless to say, this is an absurd position to take. At the end of the day, even though this question is in one of the current OGs, it is very old (30+ years). Hopefully, live questions on the GMAT don't look at hopefully the way this question does.

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

28 Sep 2020, 17:07

daagh wrote:

The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way electromagnetic waves do, hopefully will enable astronomers to study the actual formation of black holes and neutron stars.

A. in the way electromagnetic waves do, hopefully will enable
B. in the way electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable
C. like electromagnetic waves, hopefully will enable
D. like electromagnetic waves, would enable, hopefully
E. such as electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable

The first entry point is the use of the adverb ''hopefully' which goes against the vibe and the ethos of GMAT. For whatever reason, GMAT has not approved that word. So we can boldly remove A, C, and D.
Between B and E, the meaning is completely warped in E; B is the answer

Hi Sir daagh ,
How many such words( GMAT doesn't like) are there, any way to find out those? These special rules are creating lots of problem, any pointers to get over these obstacles.
In one of the questions of GMAT club grammar, incidentally is used, this use is legit? In one of option "as it is a fact" is used in place of incidentally.
https://gmatclub.com/forum/mohammed-ali ... l#p1160438

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

28 Sep 2020, 19:55

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GAURAV1113 wrote:

daagh wrote:

The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way electromagnetic waves do, hopefully will enable astronomers to study the actual formation of black holes and neutron stars.

A. in the way electromagnetic waves do, hopefully will enable
B. in the way electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable
C. like electromagnetic waves, hopefully will enable
D. like electromagnetic waves, would enable, hopefully
E. such as electromagnetic waves do, will, it is hoped, enable

The first entry point is the use of the adverb ''hopefully' which goes against the vibe and the ethos of GMAT. For whatever reason, GMAT has not approved that word. So we can boldly remove A, C, and D.
Between B and E, the meaning is completely warped in E; B is the answer

Hi Sir daagh ,
How many such words( GMAT doesn't like) are there, any way to find out those? These special rules are creating lots of problem, any pointers to get over these obstacles.
In one of the questions of GMAT club grammar, incidentally is used, this use is legit? In one of option "as it is a fact" is used in place of incidentally.
https://gmatclub.com/forum/mohammed-ali ... l#p1160438

I strongly disapprove of this approach. Please do not do this! See above for my take on this question. (TL;DR: It's a bad question, at least given the modern usage of "hopefully," and it would never, ever be asked in 2020.) But in no event should anyone try to memorize a list of words that "the GMAT doesn't like."

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

08 Oct 2020, 04:03

Hello, Can someone please explain me why option B is not a "run-on"

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

21 Oct 2020, 15:40

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shanks2020 wrote:

I have seen various replies, about the exception usage of hope/hopefully.
But here in the correct option, a whole independent clause is placed(there is a subject - it - and also verb - is hoped)with just a comma after will. How is it correct?
Also why the antecedent of "it" not an issue here?

DanielPlested wrote:

Hello, Can someone please explain me why option B is not a "run-on"

Consider the following example:

"The restaurant owners have implemented a plan. The plan will, they hope, boost revenues." - The phrase "they hope" is just some additional modifying information that tells us that the plan will not definitely boost revenues. Instead, the owners hope that the plan will boost revenues.

Now let's change "they hope" to "it is hoped":

"The restaurant owners have implemented a plan. The plan will, it is hoped, boost revenues." - In the last example, the owners were doing the hoping. In this example, an unknown subject is doing the hoping. In other words, we know that some person (or group of people) hopes that the plan will boost revenues. But we don't know who that person (or group of people) is.

Choice (B) expresses something similar. We know that some person (or group of people) hopes that the use of gravity waves will enable astronomers to study the actual formation of black holes and neutron stars. But we don't know who that person (or group of people) is.

Yes, (B) has an "it" without an antecedent. As explained in this post, such "non-referential" pronouns, though rare in correct answer choices on the GMAT, are not inherently wrong.

As mentioned in this great post by AjiteshArun, this is a very old question, and I wouldn't worry too much about "hopefully" vs "it is hoped".

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

25 Jan 2021, 07:25

I got a question - if the comparisons in C and D were "Like electromagnetic waves do" - would that be right?

Also, in E - if we remove the such and say "as electromagnetic waves do" - would that be right as well? thanks!

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

25 Jan 2021, 10:44

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d00m wrote:

I got a question - if the comparisons in C and D were "Like electromagnetic waves do" - would that be right?

Hi d00m, "Like electromagnetic waves do" would be incorrect because like is a preposition and so, can only be followed by a noun/noun-phrase. Like cannot be followed by a verb ("do" in this case). In fact, this is the #1 incorrect usage of like tested on GMAT. So, you need to be very careful about this.

"as electromagnetic waves do" would have been correct.

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Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

07 Apr 2021, 11:10

MartyTargetTestPrep
What do u think about the word "hopefully" in the GMAT?

gmatclubot

Re: The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way [#permalink]

07 Apr 2021, 11:10

GMAT Sentence Correction (EA only) Questions

The use of gravity waves, which do not interact with matter in the way