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555-605 Level|   Idioms/Diction/Redundancy|            
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sudarshan22
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 30 Nov 2018, 10:11
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D
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

Difficulty:

35% (medium)

Question Stats:

61% (00:49) correct 39% (00:58) wrong based on 2739 sessions

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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by the fact that these skills are fully developed at a very early age.

(A) but instead

(B) rather than

(C) than

(D) as

(E) so much as
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D
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 30 Nov 2018, 11:24
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The correct Idiom is Not so much X as Y

Option D
General Discussion
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priancagupt
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 30 Nov 2018, 11:39
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The correct idion is

Not so much .....as....

Ans D

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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 30 Nov 2018, 19:53
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“Not so much by A…as by B” is the correct idiom.

Ans :D

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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 01 Dec 2018, 06:54
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sudarshan22
Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by the fact that these skills are fully developed at a very early age.

(A) but instead

(B) rather than

(C) than

(D) as

(E) so much as
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https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/23/archives/article-10-no-title-prodigies.html

A child prodigy is marked not so much by his skill as by the precocity of that skill. This explains the traditional tendency of prodigy parents to whittle down their children's age. Only when he became 25 did violinist Yehudi Menuhin reveal that at his debut re- cital, when he was hailed as an 8-year- old prodigy, he was actually a month short of 10.
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 01 Dec 2018, 07:49
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Not so much (by) X as (by) Y is the right idiom.

Choice D.
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 01 Dec 2018, 10:23
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Official Explanation :

The idiomatic form for this kind of statement is "not so much by X as by Y ".

Hence, Option D is the best answer. Each of the other options produces an unidiomatic statement.
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 01 Dec 2018, 10:30
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Try to boil down it down to its core as much as possible;

A is not marked as much by X ... by Y

This structure makes it relatively apparent that the choice we are looking for is "as" :)

EDIT: My slow behind once was again too late, just saw that the OA basically states the same.
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 19 Aug 2019, 00:24
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Arro44
Try to boil down it down to its core as much as possible;

A is not marked as much by X ... by Y

This structure makes it relatively apparent that the choice we are looking for is "as" :)

EDIT: My slow behind once was again too late, just saw that the OA basically states the same.
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Do we still get purely idiomatic questions.
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 19 Aug 2019, 01:47
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amarsinha


Do we still get purely idiomatic questions.
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I would certainly advise to prepare for these type of questions.
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 01 Apr 2020, 12:14
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Honestly, This question is not worthy of 600-700 difficulty level, Simple idiomatic questions must be put in Sub - 600 level, as they don't teach you new concept. Honestly,I love to do questions which teaches me new concepts, and expects the same from 600 above difficulty level questions
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 18 Jun 2021, 19:50
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sudarshan22
Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by the fact that these skills are fully developed at a very early age.

(A) but instead

(B) rather than

(C) than

(D) as

(E) so much as
Show more

Hi GMATNinjaTwo

This may be a silly doubt, but I'm confused with the meaning of this sentence.

IMO D, Because I thought that the highlighted portion is the reason for not marking child prodigies by their skills. (AS playing the role of reasoning)

I'm not able to see any parallelism here.

Also, Can you please explain the usage of the idiom "not so much X as Y"?

Thanks in advace :)
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 21 Jun 2021, 20:12
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HarshaBujji
sudarshan22
Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by the fact that these skills are fully developed at a very early age.

(A) but instead

(B) rather than

(C) than

(D) as

(E) so much as

Hi GMATNinjaTwo

This may be a silly doubt, but I'm confused with the meaning of this sentence.

IMO D, Because I thought that the highlighted portion is the reason for not marking child prodigies by their skills. (AS playing the role of reasoning)

I'm not able to see any parallelism here.

Also, Can you please explain the usage of the idiom "not so much X as Y"?

Thanks in advace :)
Show more

HarshaBujji, I'm no expert but see if this helps. :)

Not so much X as Y - This basically means Y is a much, much bigger factor than X or that Y is a much bigger contributor to the issue at hand than X.

The meaning of the sentence is on similar lines. The sentence is trying to explain how child prodigies are marked and says that Y (the fact that these skills are fully developed at a very early age) is a much bigger factor than X (their skills). The sentence is essentially saying it is not the mere presence of the skills, but rather the development of the skills that makes a child a prodigy.
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 21 Jun 2021, 20:19
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Brian123
HarshaBujji
sudarshan22
Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by the fact that these skills are fully developed at a very early age.

(A) but instead

(B) rather than

(C) than

(D) as

(E) so much as

Hi GMATNinjaTwo

This may be a silly doubt, but I'm confused with the meaning of this sentence.

IMO D, Because I thought that the highlighted portion is the reason for not marking child prodigies by their skills. (AS playing the role of reasoning)

I'm not able to see any parallelism here.

Also, Can you please explain the usage of the idiom "not so much X as Y"?

Thanks in advace :)

HarshaBujji, I'm no expert but see if this helps. :)

Not so much X as Y - This basically means Y is a much, much bigger factor than X or that Y is a much bigger contributor to the issue at hand than X.

The meaning of the sentence is on similar lines. The sentence is trying to explain how child prodigies are marked and says that Y (the fact that these skills are fully developed at a very early age) is a much bigger factor than X (their skills). The sentence is essentially saying it is not the mere presence of the skills, but rather the development of the skills that makes a child a prodigy.
Show more

Thanks, Brian123 :). Got it.

Although both are reasons for something, Y is a much bigger factor than X.
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Child prodigies are marked not so much by their skills but instead by 22 Feb 2025, 21:05
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