GMATprep SC

[Kannn]

Can you please confirm whether my understanding is correct?
OG-11 # 57:
- "they assumed": "they" refers to "the French"
- Ans choice B:
"without it" - "it" refers to Morocco
"their grip" - "their" refers to "the French"

yes.

[tim]

thanks..

[divineacclivity]

ah yes, a tricky one.

choice d is wrong because it is extremely, incredibly wordy. 'out of' is also a problem (because the gmat would only use 'out of' if it meant literally out of something, or in standard idioms like '3 out of 4'), but the wordiness of this choice should smack you in the face the second you look at it.

.

Great explanation though leaves me with one doubt:
you mentioned that GMAT would use "out of" only in literal meanings or in idioms like 3 out of 4 but here choice d also uses 'out of' in the same fashion: a group, oneida, out of 5-nations. So, could you please explain a little more about what you meant to convey about "out of ..". It also says "a group out of 5 nations", no?

Thanks

[shankar245]

Ron, dont you think choice C lacks a comma after "the oneida"?

Thanks

no, you can't put commas around "alone of the five-nation iroquois league". that's an essential modifier; it's indispensable to the meaning of the sentence, and is NOT a separate description of the oneida. in other words, you're not saying that the oneida were actually alone per se; you're just saying that they were alone in siding with the colonists. those are two very different things indeed.

if you wrote the version with commas - the oneida, alone among the five-nation Iroquois League, sided... - you'd have the following 2 undesirable changes in meaning:
(1) you have a separate description of the oneida as "alone among the five-nation iroquois league" - i.e., they're just "alone", in some sense that we don't even know.
(2) because the modifier is now nonessential (it's basically treated as just an extra random fact about the oneida), you now have a sentence that only tells you that the oneida sided with the colonists. the sentence no longer addresses the issue of whether the other 4 nations sided with the colonists.

Hi Ron,

I just came across a question in gmat prep question pack 1 . I'm just posting a modified sentence so that it does violate copyright issues.

Many students,willing to admit that they lack verbal skills on the the gmat, are disinclined to accept that their Quantitative skills are weak.


The part in the italicised format is part of the core structure and is required for the meaning, but it is placed between two commas.
how does it work here?

BTW( This is the correct version of the question)
If some one would like to see the question ,here is the code
[deleted by moderator]

My gmat is in another 3 days. Your help would be highly appreciated.!!!!

[jlucero]

ah yes, a tricky one.

choice d is wrong because it is extremely, incredibly wordy. 'out of' is also a problem (because the gmat would only use 'out of' if it meant literally out of something, or in standard idioms like '3 out of 4'), but the wordiness of this choice should smack you in the face the second you look at it.

.

Great explanation though leaves me with one doubt:
you mentioned that GMAT would use "out of" only in literal meanings or in idioms like 3 out of 4 but here choice d also uses 'out of' in the same fashion: a group, oneida, out of 5-nations. So, could you please explain a little more about what you meant to convey about "out of ..". It also says "a group out of 5 nations", no?

Thanks

To clarify: the gmat would only use 'out of' in the correct answer choice if it meant literally out of something

[jlucero]

Ron, dont you think choice C lacks a comma after "the oneida"?

Thanks

no, you can't put commas around "alone of the five-nation iroquois league". that's an essential modifier; it's indispensable to the meaning of the sentence, and is NOT a separate description of the oneida. in other words, you're not saying that the oneida were actually alone per se; you're just saying that they were alone in siding with the colonists. those are two very different things indeed.

if you wrote the version with commas - the oneida, alone among the five-nation Iroquois League, sided... - you'd have the following 2 undesirable changes in meaning:
(1) you have a separate description of the oneida as "alone among the five-nation iroquois league" - i.e., they're just "alone", in some sense that we don't even know.
(2) because the modifier is now nonessential (it's basically treated as just an extra random fact about the oneida), you now have a sentence that only tells you that the oneida sided with the colonists. the sentence no longer addresses the issue of whether the other 4 nations sided with the colonists.

Hi Ron,

I just came across a question in gmat prep question pack 1 . I'm just posting a modified sentence so that it does violate copyright issues.

Many students,willing to admit that they lack verbal skills on the the gmat, are disinclined to accept that their Quantitative skills are weak.


The part in the italicised format is part of the core structure and is required for the meaning, but it is placed between two commas.
how does it work here?

BTW( This is the correct version of the question)
If some one would like to see the question ,here is the code
[deleted by moderator]

My gmat is in another 3 days. Your help would be highly appreciated.!!!!

The part in the commas there is not essential to the meaning of the sentence. That's why it is offset by commas.

[alexcey]

Is the phrase "depending on both its size and on climate and altitude" in the example below also considered a non-essential modifier or is it separated with commas because it's an ING modifier for the following clause? It just it seems to me that "depending on its size" should modify "single tree" according to the GMAT rules, but the context of this sentence dictates otherwise - it's a verb modifier for the following clause.

10. The yield per acre of coffee berries varies enormously in that a single tree, depending on both its size and on climate and altitude, could produce enough berries to make between one and twelve pounds of dried beans a year.
A. enormously in that a single tree, depending on both its size and on climate and altitude, could produce
B. enormously in that a single tree, dependent on its size and also on climate and altitude, is able to produce
C. enormously, because a single tree, depending on its size and on climate and altitude, is able to produce
D. enormously, because a single tree, being dependent on its size, climate, and altitude, is capable of producing
E. enormously, because a single tree, dependent both on its size as well as on climate and altitude, could produce

C is the correct answer.

[tim]

"depending..." is an adverbial modifier modifying "is able"

[alexcey]

"depending..." is an adverbial modifier modifying "is able"

Tim, here is an example taken from Sentence Correction guide, p 83:

"The cat sleeping on the rug is named "Sue."

If we change it to the following, it's clear that sleeping on the rug still modifies cat.

"This cat, sleeping on the rug, is named "Sue."

Yet grammatically the ING modifier could modify either noun "cat", acting as an adjective, or verb "is", acting as an adverb. From your observations, is this ambiguity acceptable on GMAT because the context helps exclude the adverbial role of the modifier?

[tim]

basically. more accurately though i'd say that there is no ambiguity because it is perfectly clear what the -ing phrase is referring to. the example you gave with commas is not likely to be seen on the GMAT though, as they most often reserve a comma-ing construction for adverbial modifiers..

[gaurav1a2b]

In option d) is "in siding" correct usage.
Tom was the only one to side with Jack.
Tom was the only one in siding with Jack.

Does not the correct option c) per se sound awkward?

Why is not d) the correct answer? Manhattan itself claims in its strategy guide that GMAT sometimes makes the right answers lengthy.

At the end i really appreciate the explanantion given by Ron of essential modifiers.

[tim]

no; "in siding" would not be correct usage. there are also other problems with D, none of which have to do with which answer choices are "lengthy". and there is nothing wrong with an answer choice sounding "awkward". in fact, i have NEVER seen a GMAT problem for which the only way to eliminate an answer is awkwardness. in other words, even when the OG says an answer is wrong because it is "awkward and wordy", that is NEVER the real reason and you should instead look for other reasons to eliminate the answer choice. if you are willing to eliminate an answer choice because it is awkward, you may end up eliminating the correct choice, as we see here..

[harishmullapudi]

ah yes, a tricky one.

'The Oneida' is plural, in much the same way as 'the English' or 'the French' would be plural (the French eat foods that are rather bizarre by the standards of most other countries). that observation knocks off choices a and b.

Ron, I have a question here...

In choice A, the word "who" refers to Onieda or five nations Iroquois league?
If it refers to five nations Iroquois then isn't the sentence run-on too? Because after removing modifiers, adjectives etc.. the sentence looks like "Influenced by Samuel Kirkland, the Oneida was the only one of the five nations Iroquois league". (forget about the was error here, can we eliminate this sentence because of run on issue?)

Please help me as soon as you can, I have an exam next Saturday(30th).

[jlucero]

ah yes, a tricky one.

'The Oneida' is plural, in much the same way as 'the English' or 'the French' would be plural (the French eat foods that are rather bizarre by the standards of most other countries). that observation knocks off choices a and b.

Ron, I have a question here...

In choice A, the word "who" refers to Onieda or five nations Iroquois league?
If it refers to five nations Iroquois then isn't the sentence run-on too? Because after removing modifiers, adjectives etc.. the sentence looks like "Influenced by Samuel Kirkland, the Oneida was the only one of the five nations Iroquois league". (forget about the was error here, can we eliminate this sentence because of run on issue?)

Please help me as soon as you can, I have an exam next Saturday(30th).

That's not a run-on sentence and is not a reason to eliminate A.

The Oneida was (were) the only one. (that's a valid sentence)

The only one what? The only one of the 5 nations who sided with colonists.

[samwong]

Hi Ron
I have a query regarding your explanation (french, english) of oneida being plural. What if it is considered as nation as it is clearly indicated in the question that it is one of five nation. In that case it is singular as a country/nation is singular. Or I am missing something.

"the oneida" is unambiguously plural. see my explanation above -- that's really all i've got here; it works just like "the americans" or "the french". it refers to a group of people.
perhaps it would help to explain a little bit: the oneida are a "nation" in the sense that they are a native american tribe; they don't have their own country. if they had their own country, then the geographical name of that country would be singular, although any reference to the people of that country would still be plural. (e.g., france is singular, but the french is plural.)

there is no contradiction here -- as another example, "the cherokee tribe" is also singular, although "the cherokee" (another group of people) is plural.

When I saw "the Oneida", I though it is suppose to be singular because collective nouns are singular.

MGMAT SC (5th Ed. pg44): A Collective noun is a noun that looks singular but can refer to a group of people or objects. In some rare circumstances, collective noun can be considered plural.

So the takeaway in this SC problem is that a reference to a specific group of people (ie: the Indians, the Germans, the Chinese...) is considered plural.

The word "people" is another exception to the "collective noun singular rule".

Are there any other exceptions to the rule?

Thank you.