In late 1997,the chambers inside the pyramid

[NeerajM357]

Can we reject the option D because of "Of + subortinator + ING" rule too. I understand there is no OF here but the focus is still on Action and it is followed by verbING?

Please let me know if the above rule applies only when there is OF .

[RonPurewal]

Can we reject the option D because of "Of + subortinator + ING" rule too. I understand there is no OF here but the focus is still on Action and it is followed by verbING?

Please let me know if the above rule applies only when there is OF .

i don't know what 'subortinator' means.

perhaps this will address your question:
choice D has the wrong meaning, because it can be reduced to The chambers were closed ... because of moisture + modifiers.
this is not true. the chambers were not closed because of moisture. rather, they were closed because the moisture raised the humidity (and 2 bad things ensued).

incidentally, the correct answer is the ONLY choice that actually conveys this message correctly. so, if you just think carefully about intended meaning, you can solve this problem on that basis alone.

[QianH530]

Hi Ron,

I have a parallelism question regarding the correct answer: because moisture exhaled by tourists had raised the humidity within
them to such levels that salt from the stone was crystallizing and fungus was growing on the walls. The AND here connects salt was crystallizing and fungus was growing, both have a subject and a working verb. I think a "that" before fungus is omitted here, because AND without a comma cannot connect two complete sentences. Am I correct? Thanks in advance!

[tim]

first --
OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; please note that doing so is a complete waste of your time and effort. i.e., exactly 0% of the time that you spend posting "isn't this official answer wrong?" is productive, and exactly 100% of that time is wasted.

"is this correct?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking.
you will suddenly find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you retire the idea that they might be wrong.

For this one, you just need to notice that the "that" applies to both clauses and is therefore just fine (i.e. doesn't turn the second clause into an independent clause). There are often many ways you can express parallelism, and insisting on one version when another will do just fine is one of the most common mistakes students make with parallelism. Consider:

I went to the store and the gas station.
I went to the store and to the gas station.
I went to the store and went to the gas station.

All three of these are perfectly fine, and none of these is "better" than any of the others. To get rid of the first one because it didn't have the "to" would be to miss the point of parallelism entirely - that there needs to be *something* on the left that matches with whatever you have to the right of the parallel marker.

[aflaamM589]

first --
OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; please note that doing so is a complete waste of your time and effort. i.e., exactly 0% of the time that you spend posting "isn't this official answer wrong?" is productive, and exactly 100% of that time is wasted.

"is this correct?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking.
you will suddenly find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you retire the idea that they might be wrong.

Tim, its Ron's copyrighted.
: )

[RonPurewal]

but you understand the point, right?

[tim]

No reason to reinvent the wheel when Ron says it so well.

[RonPurewal]

lol

[Crisc419]

can someone explain the usage of "due to " and "because of"


thanks

[RonPurewal]

"due to xxxx" must describe a NOUN.

Due to the festival at the stadium, the traffic congestion persisted for several miles along the freeway.
...what's "due to the festival"?
...the CONGESTION is.

by far the easiest way to think about "due to" is this:
you should ALWAYS be able to replace "due to" with "caused by".
notice this works perfectly well here:
Caused by the festival at the stadium, the traffic congestion persisted for several miles along the freeway.

__

"because of xxxx" describes not just a noun, but a WHOLE SENTENCE.

Because of the festival at the stadium, no games will be played there this weekend.

...what's "because of the festival"?
...the fact that NO GAMES WILL BE PLAYED at the stadium this weekend (the WHOLE SENTENCE).

[Crisc419]

"due to xxxx" must describe a NOUN.

Due to the festival at the stadium, the traffic congestion persisted for several miles along the freeway.
...what's "due to the festival"?
...the CONGESTION is.

by far the easiest way to think about "due to" is this:
you should ALWAYS be able to replace "due to" with "caused by".
notice this works perfectly well here:
Caused by the festival at the stadium, the traffic congestion persisted for several miles along the freeway.

__

"because of xxxx" describes not just a noun, but a WHOLE SENTENCE.

Because of the festival at the stadium, no games will be played there this weekend.

...what's "because of the festival"?
...the fact that NO GAMES WILL BE PLAYED at the stadium this weekend (the WHOLE SENTENCE).

I got the difference, many thanks, Sir.

and sorry, i have another question, what about the following part behind"because of" and "due to" ?must be NOUN, V-ING or other forms ?

for instance,

The globalization of financial-services companies has been a boon to money launders, because of allowing money placed in a bank in a less regulated jurisdiction to be transferred to a branch in a more regulated one.

I cannot understand what is wrong with the sentence above.

[RonPurewal]

those things have to be followed by nouns.

"because of VERBing" is not a legitimate construction -- that sort of thing should always be re-written as "because someone/something VERB".
e.g., the example you posted here would be better written as "...because it allows money ... to be transferred ..."

[Crisc419]

those things have to be followed by nouns.

"because of VERBing" is not a legitimate construction -- that sort of thing should always be re-written as "because someone/something VERB".
e.g., the example you posted here would be better written as "...because it allows money ... to be transferred ..."

Got it. Thanks very much, Sir. Hope you sleep well.

[ZoeZ42]

"due to xxxx" must describe a NOUN.

Due to the festival at the stadium, the traffic congestion persisted for several miles along the freeway.
...what's "due to the festival"?
...the CONGESTION is.

by far the easiest way to think about "due to" is this:
you should ALWAYS be able to replace "due to" with "caused by".
notice this works perfectly well here:
Caused by the festival at the stadium, the traffic congestion persisted for several miles along the freeway.

Dear instructors,

IMO, "due to" that follows nouns is ok here because cleaning is gerund as a noun and repair is noun,
I view them as nouns because they follow "for", and repair is not reparing
if cleaning and repairing, then I will view them as actions,

I have no idea about my fault, please clarify.


thanks a lot

have a nice day
>_~

[RonPurewal]

cleaning and repair were not caused by moisture, so "due to moisture..." is nonsense.