ankitapugalia
Hi Experts,
I get really confused about the usage of idioms such as for determing or to determine. I am not sure when to use for and to and I end up making mistakes. Please help, my exam is in 2 days.
Thanks a lot
Hello,
ankitapugalia. I understand feelings of uncertainty surrounding particular grammatical, idiomatic, or semantic issues. We all encounter grey areas from time to time, even if we would not like to admit it. Regarding idioms, though, the modern exam is much more likely to present other considerations in the different answer choices that will allow you to make a more informed decision, so you should not worry too much about idioms that fall into this side camp. Case in point: this question can be answered correctly without even thinking about the split you have identified. (In fact, I came across this very question in my own studies on 7 February, and I answered in 21 seconds.) Look again at the question. I will remove the idiomatic split to point out other concerns.
Quote:
Researchers agreed that the study of new treatments for heart attack patients was extremely important but more research was needed to determine that balloon angioplasty preceded with ultrasound was or was not any better for heart attack patients than the balloon procedure by itself.
(A) more research was needed... that balloon angioplasty preceded with ultrasound was or was not any better for heart attack patients than
(B) more research was needed... whether or not balloon angioplasty preceded by ultrasound is any better for heart attack patients than is
(C) that more research was needed... whether balloon angioplasty preceded by ultrasound is any better for heart attack patients than
(D) that more research was needed... that balloon angioplasty preceded with ultrasound was any better for heart attack patients than
(E) that more research was needed... that balloon angioplasty preceded by ultrasound is or is not any better for heart attack patients than is
A quick look at each of the options other than the correct one reveals redundancies or grammatical problems.
Preceded by is the passive form of the verb
to precede—
to precede with does not make sense, since
with is used to indicate accompaniment, while
precede means
to come before. Answer choices (A) and (D) can be dropped from contention. The former also uses a redundant and implied
or was not. The question is whether something is
better, a comparison, than something else, so the
or need not be mentioned explicitly. Answer choice (E) suffers from the same problem, while (B) adds
or not to
whether. Again, since nothing is known for certain,
or not is implied. Notice how answer choice (C) avoids all these issues. Furthermore, we do not even have to worry about
that at the beginning of the underlined portion. Whenever you see easier targets, go for those before you fixate on something that makes you doubt yourself. SC will go much more smoothly for you, and your performance will improve.
At this point in your preparation, you should not be looking to make last-minute fixes. Just relax as much as you can, reinforce your methods for taking on each type of question, and, if possible, get your mind off the test.
Good luck.
- Andrew