Mauritius was a British colony

[RonPurewal]

ok, so i looked up "gerund", and, sure enough, that's a fancy (and completely unnecessary) word for "__ing" nouns.

this is an absolutely perfect example of how using too many grammatical terms will work against you.
if you don't bother with the terms, it's quite clear that "administration" and "teaching" are two nouns here. but, because you're using unnecessary terms, the function of these words is suddenly obscured.

don't use unnecessary terminology!

[arjeet.itbhu]

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

But except in - correct answer.

Since when we use ", + but" in the sentence then it becomes the independent clause. But in this sentence after , we are having a subject(the english) and the verb(was spoken_).
Howz it possible.

MGMAT experts please clear this doubt...

Thanks
Arjeet

[RonPurewal]

i'm going to ignore the terminology (since i don't know it).

let's make this simple:

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, but except in the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island.

• the red thing is a complete sentence.

• the blue thing is a complete sentence.

• "but" connects these two complete sentences.

... and that's it.

if you understand that much, then you understand everything you need to understand about the structure of the sentence.

[vishalc581]

Hi Ron\Tim,

Is the construction "WITH THE EXCEPTION OF " always wrong in GMAT?


Can you please confirm?

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron\Tim,

Is the construction "WITH THE EXCEPTION OF " always wrong in GMAT?

there's nothing intrinsically wrong with 'with the exception of'.
in most cases there will be a more efficient way to write the sentence (e.g., 'except'), but it's certainly possible for a good sentence to contain this construction.

[RonPurewal]

here, the word 'in' is crucial to the meaning of the sentence: English was spoken IN these two areas.

the problem with choice E is that it doesn't contain 'in', and so the intended meaning is lost.

[AsadA969]

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island
A. excepting for
B. except in
C. but except in
D.but excepting for
E. with the exception of

Here, ''Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years'' is an independent clause. And 'the English language was never really spoken on the island'' is an independent clause, too. If there is no existence of the italic text, then the complete sentence will be considered as run-on-sentence. So, I've to put something in the italic text so that it (italic text) modify the last part of the sentence (the English....). If we want to write two complete sentence one by another, then we have to use semi-colon (;), if there is no use of full-stop. But, here there is no semi-colon at all. So, we have to take help for 'modifier' in the middle of the two sentences (in the italic text). And the modifier should be started with 'conjunction'. Now, I'll eliminate the answer option by this way.

A) there is no conjunction in the starting...
B) There is no conjunction in the starting...
C) yes, we can keep it for some moment...
D) yes, we can also keep it for some while...
E) There is no conjunction in the starting...
So, C and D win. But, There is no idioms like 'excepting for' in the real world. So, we can cross 'D' as well.
Finally, 'C' survives.
Ron, I've given this explanation just to be make sure that my understanding is right or wrong.
Thanks...

[RonPurewal]

if a "conjunction" is a thing like and/but/etc. that links 2 sentences, then, yes, that's an accurate summary.

[AsadA969]

if a "conjunction" is a thing like and/but/etc. that links 2 sentences, then, yes, that's an accurate summary.

Hi Ron,
Is it possible to link 2 independent clauses by any modifier, which is not starts with conjunction? I mean: is it necessary to start the modifier with 'conjunction', if we want to link 2 independent clauses?
also, How many conjunctions works here to link 2 sentences? Are there exactly 7 (e.g., for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) or more ?
Thanks Ron for your help.

[RonPurewal]

i'm sorry, but this is too abstract for me. you're going to have to give specific examples of what you're asking about, and then i can tell you whether those things are legitimate.

(also—as always—you should make sure that these queries are actually related to at least one specific GMAT item. otherwise it's far too easy to veer off into things that are entirely irrelevant to this exam.)