Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before : Sentence Correction (EA only)

pqhai

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Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. [#permalink]

15 Sep 2014, 17:26

2

Kudos

honchos wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.

are debated about in no less than
are debated in no less than
is debated about in no fewer than
is debated in no fewer than --> CORRECT.
is debated in no less than

The rule is: if the subject is a clause, it's always singular

The main subject here is "Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee", which is considered singular. Thus, A and B are out.

C is wrong because of redundant problem - "debated about"

E is wrong because it uses "less", whereas "five hundred journals" is countable and plural noun.

D is correct.

Hope it helps.

S

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. [#permalink]

20 Sep 2014, 11:24

pqhai wrote:

honchos wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.

C is wrong because of redundant problem - "debated about"

Hope it helps.

I was more inclined to pick D (almost did). But isn't "debate about" an idiom?

tsi2014

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. [#permalink]

20 Sep 2014, 19:13

Quote:

I was more inclined to pick D (almost did). But isn't "debate about" an idiom?

The problem can be simplified to

Why X happened is debated about SOMEWHERE.
Vs
Why X happened is debated SOMEWHERE.

"debate about" is idiomatic when we have a structure wherein we are debating about SOMETHING.

S

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. [#permalink]

20 Sep 2014, 23:31

tsi2014 wrote:

Quote:

"debate about" is idiomatic when we have a structure wherein we are debating about SOMETHING.

Pardon me, but I still can't get my head around it. Can you elaborate what that "structure" is?

jush0611

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Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. [#permalink]

13 Oct 2014, 05:17

pqhai wrote:

honchos wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.

are debated about in no less than
are debated in no less than
is debated about in no fewer than
is debated in no fewer than --> CORRECT.
is debated in no less than

The rule is: if the subject is a clause, it's always singular

The main subject here is "Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee", which is considered singular. Thus, A and B are out.

C is wrong because of redundant problem - "debated about"

E is wrong because it uses "less", whereas "five hundred journals" is countable and plural noun.

D is correct.

Hope it helps.

Hi!...But Manhattan says we cannot have something like "fewer than six", "lesser than six", "lower than six" but we can have "less than six"...this is because we have a definite number (six) defined in the sentence. Kindly explain...

S

sauravleo123

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army [#permalink]

17 May 2015, 09:26

1

Kudos

tia2112 wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.

are debated about in no less than
are debated in no less than
is debated about in no fewer than
is debated in no fewer than
is debated in no less than

A clause is always singular. So A and B are eliminated. Journals are countable. So fewer has to be used. E is eliminated. It should be debated in and not about.
Hence D.

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

01 Sep 2015, 19:17

mikemcgarry wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.
(A) are debated about in no less than
(B) are debated in no less than
(C) is debated about in no fewer than
(D) is debated in no fewer than
(E) is debated in no less than

For a complete discussion of substantive clauses (a.k.a nominal clauses, a.k.a noun clauses) ---including the very tricky issue of noun-clauses and subject-verb agreement --- as well as a full explanation of this particular question, see this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/substantiv ... -the-gmat/

Mike :-)

hi mikemcgarry

It seems most people POE'd down to (C) and (D) however I found it difficult to distinguish between (D) and (E) (less and fewer), could you (or anyone) explain the rule or reason why in this case fewer must be used instead of less?

Thanks

G

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

02 Sep 2015, 12:11

Expert Reply

DropBear wrote:

mikemcgarry wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.
(A) are debated about in no less than
(B) are debated in no less than
(C) is debated about in no fewer than
(D) is debated in no fewer than
(E) is debated in no less than

For a complete discussion of substantive clauses (a.k.a nominal clauses, a.k.a noun clauses) ---including the very tricky issue of noun-clauses and subject-verb agreement --- as well as a full explanation of this particular question, see this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/substantiv ... -the-gmat/

Mike :-)

hi mikemcgarry

It seems most people POE'd down to (C) and (D) however I found it difficult to distinguish between (D) and (E) (less and fewer), could you (or anyone) explain the rule or reason why in this case fewer must be used instead of less?

Thanks

Dear DropBear,
I'm happy to respond. :-)

This has to do with the distinction of countable vs. uncountable. See this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... -vs-fewer/

For anything "countable," anything for which we would say "how many," we use "fewer."

For anything "uncountable," anything for which we would say "how much," we use "less."

How much water? There's less water.
How much time? There's less time.
How much money? There's less money.

How many students? There are fewer students.
How many apples? There are fewer apples.
How many journals? There are fewer journals.

The GMAT loves this distinction, because almost everybody gets this wrong in colloquial American English.

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

02 Sep 2015, 12:39

mikemcgarry wrote:

DropBear wrote:

mikemcgarry wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.
(A) are debated about in no less than
(B) are debated in no less than
(C) is debated about in no fewer than
(D) is debated in no fewer than
(E) is debated in no less than

For a complete discussion of substantive clauses (a.k.a nominal clauses, a.k.a noun clauses) ---including the very tricky issue of noun-clauses and subject-verb agreement --- as well as a full explanation of this particular question, see this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/substantiv ... -the-gmat/

Mike :-)

hi mikemcgarry

It seems most people POE'd down to (C) and (D) however I found it difficult to distinguish between (D) and (E) (less and fewer), could you (or anyone) explain the rule or reason why in this case fewer must be used instead of less?

Thanks

Dear DropBear,
I'm happy to respond. :-)

This has to do with the distinction of countable vs. uncountable. See this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... -vs-fewer/

For anything "countable," anything for which we would say "how many," we use "fewer."

For anything "uncountable," anything for which we would say "how much," we use "less."

How much water? There's less water.
How much time? There's less time.
How much money? There's less money.

How many students? There are fewer students.
How many apples? There are fewer apples.
How many journals? There are fewer journals.

The GMAT loves this distinction, because almost everybody gets this wrong in colloquial American English.

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)

Hi mikemcgarry

Thanks very much for your reply. Yes, this explanation makes perfect sense and I should easily be able to recall this information if I am presented with this split again. Not sure if you remember me from my post some weeks ago, but I am a magoosh student, but am currently on an oil rig with very limited internet connection but will be working through the verbal training material when I am back on land.

Thanks again!

G

mikemcgarry

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

02 Sep 2015, 14:18

Expert Reply

DropBear wrote:

Hi mikemcgarry

Thanks very much for your reply. Yes, this explanation makes perfect sense and I should easily be able to recall this information if I am presented with this split again. Not sure if you remember me from my post some weeks ago, but I am a magoosh student, but am currently on an oil rig with very limited internet connection but will be working through the verbal training material when I am back on land.

Thanks again!

Dear DropBear,
Wow! Good luck out there! Take very good care of yourself!
Mike :-)

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

13 Jan 2017, 02:18

mikemcgarry wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.
(A) are debated about in no less than
(B) are debated in no less than
(C) is debated about in no fewer than
(D) is debated in no fewer than
(E) is debated in no less than

For a complete discussion of substantive clauses (a.k.a nominal clauses, a.k.a noun clauses) ---including the very tricky issue of noun-clauses and subject-verb agreement --- as well as a full explanation of this particular question, see this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/substantiv ... -the-gmat/

Mike :-)

is vs are split, debated about vs debated in and less vs fewer
the entire clause starting from Why the varous.................................. to Lee is Substantive clause nad substantive clause is always singular. hence A nad B are out.
Now come to another split debated about vs debated in
debated about is unidiomatic.
for countable things we use fewer and for uncountable we use less
Here we have journals and is countable hence C and E are out and we are left with D
and D is indeed our answer

P

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

11 Jan 2018, 04:16

mikemcgarry
debate about is informal language, isn't it?

B

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

11 Jan 2018, 04:34

mikemcgarry wrote:

Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before Ulysses S. Grant were so singularly unsuccessful against Robert E Lee are debated about in no less than five hundred historically oriented journals.
(A) are debated about in no less than
(B) are debated in no less than
(C) is debated about in no fewer than
(D) is debated in no fewer than
(E) is debated in no less than

See a full discussion of the grammar involved at:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/substantiv ... -the-gmat/

I choose D.

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

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Re: Why the various Generals of the Army of the Potomac before [#permalink]

30 Jun 2023, 04:15

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