GMAT PREP 1 Question

[gbyhats]

2 completely different issues.

• to judge "NOUN in which...", just ask yourself, Can I write "in this/that NOUN?"
e.g.,
– i can put jewelry in a box. so, the box in which i put jewelry is ok.
– i can pay taxes in a certain year. so, the year in which i paid the taxes is ok.
– on the other hand, you don't do things in a date; you do them on a date, or at a date. so, you can't say "the date in which i finished the course". (you could use "on which" or "at which".)

• "when" is explained here:
usage-of-when-t30413.html#p104604

these are completely different, and largely independent, issues.
it's possible for both constructions to work, or for just one of them to work, or for neither of them to work.

Whoa! seems so obvious and common sense, actually I don't find them complicated to grasp (very likely is because you use a concise and plain language to explain these)!

YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS FOR THE EXAM.

Hahaha, thank you very much for your reminder!
Yeah, I find myself start to ask some irrelevant GMAT questions now, probably is a sign that I should stop exploring, sit down and start to digest & review all the necessary grammar points, and give my third try on GMAT test.


Just a little curiosity:
Hi Ron, if you happen to see this post next time, I wonder what is the meaning of your quote.
I was unable to get a proper English result from Google, and Google translate tells me it means "Dressing well will make you happy".
Can I interpret your quote in this way?
(I remember a early version of you bio says you are interested in how to dress well)
You said that you don't look good as we will normally expect, and I will take it as a big understatement

[Chi HoC263]

Hi Ron,

In Ans E, "Unlike the tiny tubes that convey nutrients to bone cells, which in mammals are arrayed in parallel lines, in birds the tubes".

I know that E is not correct because it does not follow a strict parallelism rule and compare all the tiny tubes with the tubes in birds.

However, I do have a question for the noun modifier "which".

I know that, in some cases, "which" does not need to modify its immediately preceding noun but a noun positioned a little far away from "which". For example, to modify a first noun in a prepositional phrase depending on the context (X of Y, which).

Then can "which" be used to modify the subject noun separating from another modifier? For example, in the case of Ans E, can "which" be used to modify "tiny tubes"? If yes, then when I see the similar sentence structure next time, I can consider this usage.

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

no.

GMAC allows "which" to represent just 2 types of things:
1/ NOUN
2/ NOUN + (prep + noun)
...and that's it.

the sample size here is huge (hundreds of examples), so you can be one hundred percent sure that "which" is not going to describe anything else.

[ErikM442]

no.

GMAC allows "which" to represent just 2 types of things:
1/ NOUN
2/ NOUN + (prep + noun)
...and that's it.

the sample size here is huge (hundreds of examples), so you can be one hundred percent sure that "which" is not going to describe anything else.

So what does this imply? Is "which" correct usage here? Can the "which" in answer choice E actually refer to "tiny tubes", even though it's just after "bone cells, ". If it's used incorrectly, that would be an easier way to know it's invalid, instead of having to worry about the whole "does this actually compare the right things", because E is kinda tricky..

[RonPurewal]

So what does this imply?

?

nothing is "implied".
there are two very explicit formulas for what "which" can modify. those formulas mean exactly what they say.

Can the "which" in answer choice E actually refer to "tiny tubes", even though it's just after "bone cells, "

"the tiny tubes that convey nutrients to bone cells"
--> not a noun
--> not (noun + preposition + noun)
so, no.

[RonPurewal]

instead of having to worry about the whole "does this actually compare the right things", because E is kinda tricky..

if you find the parallelism issue "tricky" here, then you don't have an adequate understanding of what parallelism is.
look at the structures:

a/
in mammals the tubes ... are arrayed in parallel lines
in birds the tubes form a random pattern
in + (animal) + the tubes + do xxxxx
PERFECT MATCH

b/
the tubes ... are arrayed in mammals in parallel lines
birds have tubes that form a random pattern
nowhere close to being parallel

c/
Unlike mammals, birds' tubes...
mammals vs. tubes
nope

d/
Unlike mammals, the tubes in birds...
mammals vs. tubes
nope

e/
the tubes ... , which in mammals are arrayed in parallel lines
in birds the tubes form a random pattern
nowhere close to being parallel

one VERY clear winner, and four VERY clear losers.

[TrillingW289]

I' m not sure whether "Whereas" introduce two contrasting events and should be followed by parallel stucture. Could anyone confirm with it? Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

"whereas (idea 1), (idea 2)"

the point of the sentence is to contrast these two ideas-- i.e., it's "idea 1 vs. idea 2". therefore, it's clearly desirable to express those ideas in forms that are as parallel as possible.

[CrystalSpringston]

Hi Expert,

Whether "whereas" requires parellelism just as but/and/rather than?
I usually treat "whereas" as "although" from the meaning perspective.
As we know, "although" doesn't require abosulte parallelism.
According to this question discussion, may I get a confirmation whether whereas requires abosulte parallelism between clauses?

Thank you!

[tim]

No. "Whereas" is not a parallel marker. Your intuition to treat it the same as "although" is good.

[MdAbuAsad]

"Whereas" just needs to connect two complete sentences. As long as thing #1 and thing #2 are complete sentences, technically, you have grammatical parallelism.

What should be pretty obvious here, though, is that it's better if the two sentences look alike"”especially if they express similar or corresponding ideas.

E.g.,
If you return your library books late, you will accrue fines on your account.
If your library books are returned late, fines will be accrued on your account.
vs.
If you return your library books late, fines will be accrued on your account.
If your library books are returned late, you will accrue fines on your account.

All four of these sentences are grammatically sound, and all four have reasonable meanings, but it should nonetheless be absolutely clear that the first two are much better than the last two.

That means, we should make sentence so that it becomes active to active or passive to passive in a particular sentence, right Ron?
Thanks for your help.

[RonPurewal]

the point is that you should just try to make things look like each other as much as possible—as far as the context will permit. YOU SHOULD NOT TRY TO MEMORIZE "RULES" FOR HOW TO DO THIS—because it's IMPOSSIBLE to memorize any such "rules". (this is why parallelism is so extensively tested on the GMAT exam, by the way—because it's an absolutely universal feature of ALL human languages, but you CAN'T program a machine to execute it.)

if you try to memorize "rules" for this, THAT is where the trouble starts.
for instance, there are plenty of parallel structures in which one part is "active" and the other part is "passive". (e.g., These bottles were thrown into the ocean and drifted over a thousand miles to the Amalfi coast.)

just trust your basic human ability to recognize "more alike" and "less alike", in terms of these larger-scale resemblances.

[MdAbuAsad]

(2) It seems that choice E is incorrect because it compare "the tiny tubes" and "in birds".
So, can I conclude that if a sentence uses such structure as "unlike xxxx, yyyy", no matter what kind of word is - for example, preposition and noun - xxxx is compared with yyyy?

We've never seen GMAC use that construction any other way, so, sure.

The real issue with choice E is that it creates a comparison between all tubes (not just the ones in mammals!) and "the tubes in birds".

E.g., consider the following two sentences:

Unlike smog, which in Mexico City is often dense enough to hospitalize or even kill asthmatic children, humidity is not inherently dangerous.
--> This sentence is a comparison between ALL smog (not just the smog in Mexico City) and humidity.
The issue with choice E is that it's structured the same way, mistakenly suggesting a reference to all such tubes in the first part of the sentence.

... versus
Unlike the smog in Mexico City, which is often dense enough to hospitalize or even kill asthmatic children, the air pollution in Houston has never threatened human life.
--> Now it's just "Mexico City smog vs. Houston air pollution".

I need to compare apple to apple or orange to orange, not apple to orange or orange to apple, as far i know. So, in E, 'tiny tubes' is compared with 'bird's tiny tubes'. Ron, you said that the first 'tiny tubes' may be ALL 'tiny tubes' in this world, and the 2nd 'tiny tubes' is only from birds. So, 'tiny tubes' in ALL and 'tiny tubes' in BIRDS are not the SAME thing; the comparison is NOT so sweet, according to you. So, if this the case, then in A, I think that 'tiny tubes' in MAMMALS and 'tiny tubes' in BIRDS are not the SAME thing at all! So, we can cross out choice A, too. . Do you think these two 'tiny tubes' are the SAME things?
Actually, what SHOULD we compare here? Should we compare just 'MAMMALS' with 'BIRDS' or 'tiny tubes' with 'tiny tubes'?
In apparently, it seems that we're comparing JUST 'apple' with 'apple', we're NOT comparing ONLY 'apple' with 'apple'; we're comparing the first 'apple', which comes from 'apple tree' and the 2nd 'apple', which MUST come from 'apple tree' too. If the 2nd 'apple' comes from 'orange tree', then it is NOT pure comparison ,too. If THIS is true, then 'tiny tubes' IN MAMMALS and 'tiny tubes' IN BIRDS does not make pure comparison at all. Ron, i'm not questioning the correct option; i just make my logic regarding your explanation, which is quoted in THIS post.
-----------------------
In C, mammals is not the physical location. So, we can cross out C just seeing the word 'where', isn't it Ron?
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FYI, in your first example, i think the 'smog' is not from ALL over the world; this 'smog' is ONLY from 'Mexico city', because your 'which clause' modified this 'smog'. Anyway, I'm not sure about it, may be i am wrong.

[RonPurewal]

"whereas" creates a contrast between two entire sentences, not between two nouns.

[RonPurewal]

In C, mammals is not the physical location. So, we can cross out C just seeing the word 'where', isn't it Ron?

^^ yes.