Nine months after the county-GPrep SC

[divineacclivity]

Hi Ron,

In the correct choice D: "that it violated state laws allowing", which one of the two - "ban" or "laws" does allowing modify?

I guess the answer is "ban", as in this sentence: Ban violates something allowing something. Is that correct?

thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

In the correct choice D: "that it violated state laws allowing", which one of the two - "ban" or "laws" does allowing modify?

I guess the answer is "ban", as in this sentence: Ban violates something allowing something. Is that correct?

thanks in advance

this is a good test of whether you're actually thinking about the context of the sentence.
in context, one of those modifications makes sense, and the other is nonsense (in fact stating exactly the opposite of the intended meaning).

which one makes sense?

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,
referring to Vinny’s analyis, would you agree that C has a more a meaning issue rather than a tense issue

all tense issues are, by definition, meaning issues. (grammar plays no role in deciding the tense of a verb.)

[Levent-g]

Thanks

[divineacclivity]

Hi Ron,

In the correct choice D: "that it violated state laws allowing", which one of the two - "ban" or "laws" does allowing modify?

I guess the answer is "ban", as in this sentence: Ban violates something allowing something. Is that correct?

thanks in advance

this is a good test of whether you're actually thinking about the context of the sentence.
in context, one of those modifications makes sense, and the other is nonsense (in fact stating exactly the opposite of the intended meaning).

which one makes sense?

Contextually, "allowing .." should be modifying "laws" but shouldn't this participle modifier grammatically be modifying "ban" (like i mentioned in my example in the previous post) or would you say that a comma is missing before "allowing" for it to be modifying "ban"? Please explain. thank you very much in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Contextually, "allowing .." should be modifying "laws"

yep. and that is exactly what it does. (-ing's without commas describe the preceding noun.)

it seems you are clear on the context here, so i guess the thing i don't understand is why you considered the other interpretation in the first place.

[divineacclivity]

Contextually, "allowing .." should be modifying "laws"

yep. and that is exactly what it does. (-ing's without commas describe the preceding noun.)

it seems you are clear on the context here, so i guess the thing i don't understand is why you considered the other interpretation in the first place.

Sorry but I'm gettin a little confused here.
My question/confusion is if using a comma before the modifier change the meaning e.g.
1. "He overturned the ban on the laws allowing something" - no comma
2. "He overturned the ban on the laws, allowing something" - comma before allowing

sentence 1 above would mean that the laws allow something whereas sentence 2 (comma used) means overturning the ban allowed something. Is my understanding correct?

thank you very much in advance, Ron

[thanghnvn]

E is wrong because

"doing" can be used in one of the following cases

- noun doing
- before a clause, we need comma before the main clause
learning english, I feel happy
- after a clause, we nned a comma before "doing"

I learn English, feeling happy.

there is no other cases in which "doing" is used

in the cases 2 and 3, "doing' can modify the subject or modify the main verb and refer to the subject.

is my thinking correct?

[RonPurewal]

1. "He overturned the ban on the laws allowing something" - no comma
2. "He overturned the ban on the laws, allowing something" - comma before allowing

sentence 1 above would mean that the laws allow something whereas sentence 2 (comma used) means overturning the ban allowed something. Is my understanding correct?

thank you very much in advance, Ron

your understanding is correct.

[RonPurewal]

E is wrong because

"doing" can be used in one of the following cases

- noun doing
- before a clause, we need comma before the main clause
learning english, I feel happy
- after a clause, we nned a comma before "doing"

I learn English, feeling happy.

there is no other cases in which "doing" is used

in the cases 2 and 3, "doing' can modify the subject or modify the main verb and refer to the subject.

is my thinking correct?

in your cases #2 and #3, the modifiers can't modify only the subject; there must be some sort of relevance to the action of the verb.
in other words, if this kind of modifier accurately describes the subject but has nothing to do with the verb/action, then it's incorrect.

e.g.
Standing almost seven feet tall, Wade is one of the best math students in the class.
--> incorrect; even though "standing almost seven feet tall" describes "Wade", there is no reasonable connection between wade's height and his math prowess
vs.
Standing almost seven feet tall, Wade is one of the most physically imposing students in the class.
--> correct; the modifier applies to wade and also has an obvious relationship to the following clause.

--

by the way, i can also think of a fourth usage of this kind of modifier: it may follow a noun (i.e., NOT a clause), in which case it describes that noun—but, again, not just the noun. as before, it must describe the entire following action in some obvious way (= obvious enough not to require further explanation!).
e.g.
Wayne, frantically waving his arms, tried to attract the attention of the pilot flying overhead.
(correct example)
--> in this sentence, note that (a) the modifier "waving..." describes wayne, and also that (b) there is a clear relationship between the action of the modifier and the action of the clause that it modifies.

[thanghnvn]

E is wrong because

"doing" can be used in one of the following cases

- noun doing
- before a clause, we need comma before the main clause
learning english, I feel happy
- after a clause, we nned a comma before "doing"

I learn English, feeling happy.

there is no other cases in which "doing" is used

in the cases 2 and 3, "doing' can modify the subject or modify the main verb and refer to the subject.

is my thinking correct?

in your cases #2 and #3, the modifiers can't modify only the subject; there must be some sort of relevance to the action of the verb.
in other words, if this kind of modifier accurately describes the subject but has nothing to do with the verb/action, then it's incorrect.

e.g.
Standing almost seven feet tall, Wade is one of the best math students in the class.
--> incorrect; even though "standing almost seven feet tall" describes "Wade", there is no reasonable connection between wade's height and his math prowess
vs.
Standing almost seven feet tall, Wade is one of the most physically imposing students in the class.
--> correct; the modifier applies to wade and also has an obvious relationship to the following clause.

--

by the way, i can also think of a fourth usage of this kind of modifier: it may follow a noun (i.e., NOT a clause), in which case it modifies that noun.
still, as before, it should also have some kind of obvious relationship to the following action.
e.g.
Wayne, frantically waving his arms, tried to attract the attention of the pilot flying overhead.
(correct example)
--> in this sentence, note that (a) the modifier "waving..." describes wayne, and also that (b) there is a clear relationship between the action of the modifier and the action of the clause that it modifies.

thank you Ron, I feel cool and can not say any word for your excellence.

[tim]

:)

[thanghnvn]

noun doing
means
this noun directly creates the "doing"

noun for doing
means
noun for someone to do,
the nown dose not create the "doing"

noun to do
means
the noun dose not directl create the "doing"

we do not need to know the difference between "noun for doing" and "noun to do" because it is not tested on gmat

but the difference between "noun doing" and the 2 phrases above is tested on gmat ( the question "law require farmer"). in this problem, "to allow" and " for allow" are wrong. "law allowing" is correct.

[jlucero]

noun doing
means
this noun directly creates the "doing"

noun for doing
means
noun for someone to do,
the nown dose not create the "doing"

noun to do
means
the noun dose not directl create the "doing"

we do not need to know the difference between "noun for doing" and "noun to do" because it is not tested on gmat

but the difference between "noun doing" and the 2 phrases above is tested on gmat ( the question "law require farmer"). in this problem, "to allow" and " for allow" are wrong. "law allowing" is correct.

This looks correct. Did you have a question?

[thanghnvn]

what is the wrong with A pls clarify.

its writing is poor but ramatically what is the red light

* unidiomatic: you can't write "on the grounds OF _____". you should use that.

* there's also no pronoun, or any other reference, to indicate what violated the state laws. (you might not notice this sort of thing in a standalone sentence, because the meaning is pretty obvious, but note the contrast with choices (b), (c), and (d), all of which do contain appropriate references.)

Thank you, Ron, for detail explantion. I want to say something.

"doing" can be used to refer to a general action (if there is no action nouns such as "learnation". gmat forces us to use action noun to refer to general action if the action noun exists (there are many og question which prove this point). when used to refer to general action, "doing" dose not need a subject. we do not need to know who do "doing"

In contrast, can be used to refer to a specific subject in the sentence .in this case, " doing" is called participle. In this case, "doing" need a subject.

the context of sentence will show us in which case "doing" is in. So, we need to find out the intended meaning of the sentence.

in summary, there are 3 aspects of "doing", which we need to care:
- which is subject of "doing" or "doing" refers to a general action and need no subject
- which is tense of of "doing", yes it is tense of main clause
- which is meaning relation between "doing" and "main clause". (i do not say about the case in which "doing" touch noun. This "doing" is totally an adjectival)

in this beautifull question from gmatprep, gmat want to test us 3 aspects above.

is my thinking correct?