Usage of With In GMAT Prep SC

Hello Everyone,

During my preparation for the GMAT , I found it difficult to remember the different forms of usage of "with" as is used in many official SC questions .

So I have compiled a small document that helped me a lot to understand the usage of "with".

Sharing it here for mutual benefit.



Usages of With

1) “With” is used to give the result of the action in preceding clause.
For Eg:
i) The honeybee’s stinger is heavily barbed and stays where it is inserted, with the result that the act of stinging causes

Here “with” is used to give the result of the action in preceding clause === The honeybee’s stinger is heavily barbed and stays where it is inserted.

So we can see that “Comma + With” acts as an adverbial Modifier

ii) Environmental groups have filed a mass of lawsuits against the government’s inaction, with the result that the Supreme Court plays a larger role in environmental protection than its equivalent does in any other big country - an odd way to set policy.

Here also “comma + with” is used to give the result of preceding action


2) With + noun

“With” is used when the noun after “with” attaches to the subject of preceding clause. Here with phrase gives more information about the preceding subject .
Also a noun after with should be a sub component of the subject of preceding clause

Matt has a very full schedule this week, with every one of his available time slots occupied.

--> this sentence works, because "with" actually applies to Matt and/or his schedule -- i.e., Matt is the person with those occupied time slots, and/or his schedule is actually the thing with those time slots.

The thirteen original British colonies in North America, with some formed as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter


In the Above sentence=== "some" is referring to the colonies themselves, so that sentence is literally talking about "colonies with colonies". that doesn't make sense.


Now this sentence,
Emily and Nora fell asleep, with Emily still having wet hair.
This doesn't work, because Emily is not a sub-component of Emily.
Generally, the noun should be some component of the previous subject
James was injured badly in the accident, with three bones broken badly enough to require surgery.

In this kind of construction"”with + noun + verbED/verbING"”the noun should be some component of the previous thing. I.e., here, the bones are part of James.



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