Why cheddar cheese should inhibit tooth decay is unclear, but Dr. Bowe

I chose the answer option C. I do not understand why A is correct but not C. I mean, the doctor speculates how the cheese inhibits tooth decay because it is unclear. Please explain?

Lots of folks asking about (A) vs (C)... and with good reason! This is a fairly subtle point, and I wouldn't kill too many brain cells worrying about this one -- I doubt it will help you much on a future question.

That said, let's give it a shot by examining the following questions:

• "How should cheddar cheese inhibit tooth decay?" - This suggests that there are various ways for cheddar cheese to inhibit tooth decay and that the cheese (or it's makers?) need to decide how (or by what mechanism) the cheddar cheese should do it.
• "How does cheddar cheese inhibit tooth decay?" - This one suggests that cheddar cheese DOES inhibit tooth decay -- and we're just asking about the mechanism: "Okay, we know that cheddar cheese inhibits tooth decay, but how?"
• "Why does cheddar cheese inhibit tooth decay?" - I think this is pretty much the same as the last one. You might argue that the use of "why" suggests that the cheese has some conscious reason for inhibiting tooth decay ("WHY did you leave me, cheddar cheese? WHY??? ). But we use "why" like this all the time (i.e. "Why is the sky blue?" or "Why does my stomach hurt after eating seven burritos and drinking a six-pack of beer?" ).
• "Why should cheddar cheese inhibit tooth decay?" - As explained in an earlier post, the "should" suggests that, generally speaking, we expect cheddar cheese to inhibit tooth decay. (Will it always inhibit tooth decay? No... but it should.) And now we are just asking about the mechanism: "Okay, we know that it should inhibit tooth decay, but why? Why on Earth should cheddar cheese inhibit tooth decay??"

So, if we KNEW that the cheddar cheese inhibited tooth decay, we would go with the 2nd option. By using the 1st, (C) seems to suggest that there's a decision to be made, and that's not appropriate. And hopefully the 3rd and 4th examples illustrate why the "why" is okay in (A).

Again, this isn't super important, so I wouldn't waste too much time on this distinction!

Why cheddar cheese should inhibit tooth decay is unclear, but Dr. Bowen, who reports ...
A. Why cheddar cheese should inhibit tooth decay is unclear
C. How cheddar cheese should inhibit tooth decay is not clear

The distinction between A and C is subtle.
GMAT experts with a 'good ear' may say instinctively that A is right and C is wrong, but even they will probably find it hard explain why exactly this is so (because they are GMAT experts, not expert copy-editors).
Anyone who is at below 40+ in verbal will not even see such a question, unless it appears as a test question. So it may not be a good use of your time to struggle with the A vs C issue.

When in doubt, if something like this were to appear on the real test, use what you know. Look for other reasons to eliminate an answer.
Notice that A uses 'UNCLEAR', whereas C uses 'NOT CLEAR'. 'NOT CLEAR' is not wrong, but 'UNCLEAR' is probably better.
Choose A, and move on.

Back to A vs C:
A says "Why cheddar should inhibit tooth decay is unclear" : no error
The following would have been fine too. They are grammatical and have much the same meaning.
- Why cheddar inhibits tooth decay is unclear
- How cheddar inhibits tooth decay is unclear

"How X should do Y is unclear" may be acceptable in a different context.
For example, I think it is acceptable to say "How we should prepare is unclear". Meaning, we know have to prepare but are not sure how to go about it.
That meaning will not fit in this question.




Posted from my mobile device

" the food might interfere with the acid that decays teeth or with the bacterium that produces the acid"

Isn't this part of the sentence answering the 'how' question and not the 'why' question? If so, shouldn't C be the more appropriate answer?

Check out this post, if you haven't already.

There is definitely some overlap between "how" and "why." If you ask me WHY cigarettes are bad for you, I might explain HOW the ingredients in cigarettes affect the body. If you ask me WHY the sky is blue, I might explain HOW the atmosphere impacts the incoming sunlight (even though you didn't directly ask me, "HOW does the atmosphere/sunlight make the sky appear blue to the human eye?").

Again, please refer to this post for more on A vs C.

I hope that helps a bit!

Hi GMATNinja sir,

I already spent my some brain cells on this questions. I want to make sure my efforts are in line.

Here is the summary of your previous post. Please comment if my understanding is right.( refer the excel sheet)


For this particular question, Tooth decay happened is UNCLEAR- so it means that we are surpirsed that tooth decay happen . We are curious how on earth it actually happened. So it matches with (i.) in the excel sheet pic.


if we were given a statement that tooth decay has happened then we would have proceed with ii, iii or iv depending on what information we would have got.

What do you say?

Thanks GMATNinja

I definitely don't think it's worth trying to pin down rules governing why vs how based on one single question. Again, I don't think this distinction is going to help you much, if at all, on any future questions.


I don't think this is quite right, unfortunately. When we say that "cheddar cheese should inhibit tooth decay," that means that we generally expect cheddar cheese to inhibit tooth decay -- but that doesn't mean it will happen every time (as explained in this post).

But yes, if it were certain that cheddar cheese always inhibits tooth decay no matter what, then it would make more sense to ask, "How (or why) does this happen?" For our thoughts on "how should," check out this post.

Now please delete that spreadsheet and save your brain cells for... anything else!

"SHOULD", on GMAT, is used for depicting moral obligation, but it will be inappropriate to use 'SHOULD' as per the context?

Can anyone help here?

pyaasa
The comment by ajh258 overlooks a couple of important things. First, the word "why" has a much wider range of meanings than the indication of intent. Why is the sky blue? Why do I have to take the GMAT? Why didn't we win the game? The word "why" is used any time we want a reason, and that reason may have nothing to do with thinking beings and their intentions.

Second, as others have pointed out above (see the comment by FridaElisa), the word "should" later in the sentence is very important. We can research how cheddar prevents tooth decay, but how it *should* do so is a whole other story. I don't think anyone is looking into what cheese *should* do.

So why is "should" there? It's a way of expressing surprise at an unexpected occurrence. When the sentence says "Why cheddar cheese should inhibit tooth decay is unclear," it's basically saying "We don't see why this would ever happen" before reporting that it does happen and providing one theory of why it happens. I remember when that research came out, but still go easy on the cheese--it's also been found to be chemically addictive!

Mayank221133
Like most common words, "should" has a range of meanings. It is often used to indicate moral obligation or to make a recommendation, but it is also used in discussions of probability and conditionals. "If you take good care of that machine, it should last at least 10 years." "It should be snowing by the time we get to Boston." "If I should lose my courage, you will have to step in."

Can any one explain is there nothing to do with inhibit and inhibits

Posted from my mobile device

No, nothing at all.
SHOULD (or WOULD) is used as an auxiliary verb.
The main verb that follows will always be in the bare, simple form. It will not indicate singular/plural, and it will not indicate tense.
So we will always write "WOULD INHIBIT", never "WOULD INHIBITS" , never "WOULD INHIBITED".

This is similar to how we use WILL.
We always say "WILL WRITE", never "WILL WRITES", never "WILL WROTE", never " WILL WRITTEN".

normally, we use "should" to show
1, obligation, you should stay at home because the rain is heavy
2, subjuctive. this use is in British English . this use is similar to " infinitive" use in American english.

I recommend she LEARN english. I recommend she should learn english

3. similar to "will"

in this problem, I know "should" can be used like "will" to show a likely probability.
this use is not explained in many grammar book and rarely appears in gmat land.

I will come back to edit this posting

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION BY GMAC

The sentence considers some possible mechanisms by which cheddar cheese might inhibit tooth decay. The underlined portion of the given sentence may express a certain skepticism, signaled by the use of why … should, as to whether cheddar cheese does, in fact, inhibit tooth decay, and the rest of the sentence attributes to Dr. Bowen a speculation as to how this might occur. The expression why … decay is a noun clause and the subject of the verb is.

A. Correct. As explained above, this version of the sentence is clear and grammatically in order.

B. This answer choice is incoherent. Because it is nonsensical to say that cheddar cheese is not clear, cheddar cheese cannot be taken as the subject of the verb is; the phrase cheddar cheese and is therefore best viewed as a fragment that does not fit grammatically in the context.

C. This version appears intended to indicate that no clear mechanism by which cheddar cheese inhibits, or could inhibit, tooth decay has been described. Because the concern about a mechanism would presuppose that cheddar cheese does, or could, inhibit tooth decay, the use of should to indicate doubt as to whether this is so does not fit well in context.

D. The intended thought in this answer choice may be something like the following: it is unclear that cheddar cheese inhibits tooth decay, and how [it would do so]. But this is not correctly expressed. The verb is seems to have two subjects, the that-clause and the implicit how-clause, so the verb form should be the plural are.

E. This answer choice is unnecessarily awkward and wordy, with the use of there is and the unnecessary use of the noun inhibition instead of a form of the verb inhibit.

The correct answer is A.

Hi experts,

How do we differentiate between inhibit and inhibits in this example?

Isn't cheddar cheese singular and should take on the verb inhibits?

Thanks!

"cheddar cheese" is indeed singular.

But then, when did you mention "should take" and not "should takes" .

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