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655-705 Level|   Idioms/Diction/Redundancy|   Verb Tense/Form|               
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dave13
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 05 Nov 2020, 09:13
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AndrewN
lakshya14
What does "it" stands for in (E)?
Hello, lakshya14. This it in choice (E), as well as the one in choice (A), is known as a placeholder. As such, it has no antecedent. It merely fills the role of a grammatical subject in a sentence. Compare:

1) It is going to be hot today. (What is hot? The weather? The air?)

2) It is too bad that she failed in her bid to break the record. (What is too bad? The outcome? The circumstance?)

I hope that helps. (Language sure is weird, and English is chock-full of such oddities.)

- Andrew
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AndrewN hey there :) i excluded E because i thought "them" could refer either skills or students, .... :roll: well frankly i excluded all options with "them" :grin: :lol: :lol: :lol: man how can I check that "them" refers to students :) is there a trick/rule ?

(E) are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 05 Nov 2020, 11:44
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dave13

AndrewN hey there :) i excluded E because i thought "them" could refer either skills or students, .... :roll: well frankly i excluded all options with "them" :grin: :lol: :lol: :lol: man how can I check that "them" refers to students :) is there a trick/rule ?

(E) are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming
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Hello, dave13. Yes, there is a trick to qualifying an otherwise ambiguous them: read the whole sentence and see if contextual clues point to one logical interpretation. In the sentence at hand, we have two lines of thought to consider:

1) Students in the metropolitan school district are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb these students into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.

2) Students in the metropolitan school district are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb these math skills into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.

It makes sense to suggest that students are not prepared to enter the information-based city economy; it does not make sense to suggest that skills are not prepared. The verb absorb functions like integrate here, although there is a nice play on words going on, namely with the idiom to absorb information. (Someone might associate knowledge of information with skills and feel better about eliminating (E) for pronoun ambiguity, even if people do not absorb information into their brains. Meanwhile, someone at GMAC™ probably got a bonus for being clever.)

I hope that helps. If you lean on the clues in the rest of the sentence and still cannot tell what a pronoun may refer to, then you might want to put that answer choice on hold while you check the others for a fix to the problem. Thank you for thinking to ask me about this one.

- Andrew
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 17 Nov 2020, 11:50
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Can someone explain to me the meaning of "a city economy" ?
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 17 Nov 2020, 15:22
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It is quite common for one noun to modify another.
BASEBALL player
JAZZ pianist
GRAMMAR expert
In each of the cases above, the first noun serves to modify the second.
A noun that serves to modify another noun is called an ATTRIBUTIVE NOUN.

Avinashkr29
Can someone explain to me the meaning of "a city economy" ?
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Here, city is an attributive noun modifying economy.
Question: What KIND of economy?
Answer: a CITY economy
city economy = the economy of a city
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 17 Nov 2020, 15:31
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Sometimes it serves as an EXPLETIVE: a placeholder pronoun whose purpose is to DELAY THE SUBJECT.
On the GMAT, the delayed subject will often be an infinitive phrase or a that-clause.

IT is easy TO LIKE MARY.
Here, it is standing in for to like Mary.
Conveyed meaning:
TO LIKE MARY is easy.

IT was not until last year THAT JOHN BEGAN STUDYING.
Here, it is standing in for that John began studying.
Conveyed meaning:
THAT JOHN BEGAN STUDYING was not until last year.

lakshya14
What does "it" stands for in (E)?
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OA: It will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy.
Here, it is standing in for to absorb them into a city economy.
Conveyed meaning:
TO ABSORB THEM INTO A CITY ECONOMY will be difficult.
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 18 Dec 2020, 18:45
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I am confused as to why D is incorrect. https://gmatclub.com/forum/idiom-use-so ... 20549.html says that "so X as to" is idiomatically correct as long as the "to" is part of a infinitive verb, which in this case it is ("to be").

My only guess here is that the "so X" referes to "so much" rather than "so lacking". If it was "so lacking" would you be able to argue it's correct?
I also didn't like how every other answer used "them" when we have two plural nouns is could refer back to (Students, math skills).

Can anyone provide a much clearer explanation of this question?
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 29 Mar 2021, 23:38
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fireagablast
I am confused as to why D is incorrect. https://gmatclub.com/forum/idiom-use-so ... 20549.html says that "so X as to" is idiomatically correct as long as the "to" is part of a infinitive verb, which in this case it is ("to be").
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Hi fireagablast, there indeed are several officially correct answers that use so as to. For example:

Often major economic shifts are so gradual as to be indistinguishable at first from ordinary fluctuations in the financial markets.

The Emperor Augustus, it appears, commissioned an idealized sculpture portrait, the features of which are so unrealistic as to constitute what one scholar calls an "artificial face."

As a general guideline, the usage of so as to is correct when the intent is to redefine/explain the adjective following so.

On the other hand, if the intent is to depict a cause & effect, then so that should be used.

For example:

Incorrect: Technically, "quicksand" is the term for sand that is so saturated with water as to acquire a liquid's character.

Correct: Technically, "quicksand" is the term for sand that is so saturated with water that it acquires the character of a liquid.

Cause: Saturation
Effect: It acquires the character of a liquid.

Similarly, in the sentence under consideration,

Cause: Lack of Math skills in students in the metropolitan school district.
Effect: it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries

Since this sentence is representative of cause and effect scenario, so that is the appropriate usage.
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 01 Jul 2022, 01:16
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.

grammar error
(C)Students in the metropolitan school district lack of math skills is so large as to be difficult to absorb them into a city’s economy that becomes
(B)Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to a large enough degree that they will be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy that becomes

meaning error
(A)Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming (wrong meaning)
(D)Students in the metropolitan school district are lacking so much in math skills as to be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy becoming( double meaning)

(E)Students in the metropolitan school district are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming (OA)

they will be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy that becomes...(fine)
it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming...(fine)
they make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming (x)
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 04 Jul 2022, 05:24
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I have a question: Do people know just by looking at choice A that it is testing the "so X that Y" idiom?
Many explanations in the thread mention that as a reason for elimination of choice A. Are people able to identify based on the use case (wherein the sentence wants to highlight extent of something and they expect only this particular idiom to be used and no other? ) or only after looking at all answer choices could they identify the idiom tested? Just wanted to understand the mindset of people while solving this question.
I wasn't able to eliminate A right away(not knowing the idiom), but was able to eliminate B/C/E based on other errors. Between A and E, it was mostly a hunch(after wasting some time debating between the two).
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 02 Oct 2022, 08:04
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In E, why "city economy" is correct? Shouldn't it be "city's economy"?
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 04 Oct 2022, 23:47
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Is it possible to add ‘idiom’ tag to this question as it tests ‘So X as to Y’?
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 05 Oct 2022, 00:26
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DesiMozart
Is it possible to add ‘idiom’ tag to this question as it tests ‘So X as to Y’?
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Done. Thank you for the suggestion!
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 11 Oct 2022, 02:42
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how do I understand that the phrase - '' City's economy " makes it seem that there is some specific city ?
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 24 Oct 2022, 19:17
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himanshu0123
how do I understand that the phrase - '' City's economy " makes it seem that there is some specific city ?
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Yes, "a city's economy" seems to refer to the economy of a single, unspecified city (which may or may not be the city where the metropolitan school district is!).

The phrase "city economy" is more like "tennis court" -- "city" modifies "economy" just as "tennis" modifies "court"

I hope that helps!
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 14 Jan 2023, 05:08
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.

(A) lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming
(B) lack math skills to a large enough degree that they will be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy that becomes
(C) lack of math skills is so large as to be difficult to absorb them into a city’s economy that becomes
(D) are lacking so much in math skills as to be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy becoming
(E) are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming

Between A & E, E is grammatically correct. In option A, "it" refers to the noun phrase "absorbing them into a city economy becoming..". This phrase, however, is not present in the option as it is.
On the other hand, in E, "it" refers to "to absorb them into a city economy becoming.." and this is present as it is in the option.
"It" never refers to a noun in a noun phrase but refers to the noun phrase itself.
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Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such 22 Mar 2023, 12:13
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TommyWallach
Hey All,

Lots of great conversation surrounding this one. At MGMAT, we use this question to demonstrate a fundamental rule of sentence correction, namely that the correct answer often sounds terrible. The reason the correct answer here sounds so bad (and why many of you didn't pick it), is because of the use of the rare idiom so X as to Y, and the present participle. I'll explain:

Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.

(A) lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming
PROBLEM: So x as to Y is the idiom, as many of you pointed out. Also, the subject of "to absorb" is highly unclear. Who's absorbing them?

(B) lack math skills to a large enough degree that they will be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy that becomes
PROBLEM: "large enough degree that" is not idiomatic. "City's economy" makes it seem that there is some specific city, which is odd (though not inherently wrong). Finally "becomes" makes it seem as if this hasn't happened yet, but the point is that it is happening at present.

(C) lack of math skills is so large as to be difficult to absorb them into a city’s economy that becomes
PROBLEM: You can't really have a "large" "lack of math skills". Same two points at the end as before.

(D) are lacking so much in math skills as to be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy becoming
PROBLEM: Again, the so X as to Y is wrong. City's economy remains weird.

(E) are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming
ANSWER: So X as to Y is correct. Becoming is a present participle modifying city economy, and it makes it clear that this is currently happening.

For what it's worth, all of these answer choices also have an ambiguous pronoun ("them" could be math skills or students), but apparently GMAT figured it wasn't important here. Silly GMAT.

Hope that helps!

-tommy
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Why City's economy is wrong here?
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