Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory

[RonPurewal]

no. just ask yourself what you have enough of, and it should become clear.. :)

Tim your answers always confuses me more, it seems that you most of the time detour to answer our questions directly and explain to us with reasons and examples, instead you throw questions back to us as if we should know them without asking you.

actually, what tim is doing here is exactly what tim should be doing here.
you're looking at the correct answer to an official problem. so, everything in that answer is, by definition, correct.

in the current context, it's quite clear exactly what is "enough" to do xxxxxx. so, because the sentence is correct, you can tell EXACTLY how that modifier works -- by just looking at the sentence.

if that functionality clashes with your understanding, then what's wrong is your current understanding, not the functionality.
in that case, you just have to update your understanding to encompass the current example.

--

also, in terms of language, "responding with examples" is essentially the only thing that's effective.
trying to explain anything (except maybe the simplest things) in terms of "rules" is at best difficult, and at times impossible. on the other hand, if you are handed a decent set of examples, you don't need a "rule" -- you can just make analogies to the examples.

think about how you learned your first language as a kid.
how many "grammatical rules" did your parents teach you? zero, none, nada.
how did you actually learn the language? by accumulating countless examples and making appropriate analogies to them.

that's the same thing you should do here. if you actually try to think in terms of "rules" when you're solving SC problems, there's no way that's going to happen within a reasonable amount of time.

[bonniewjx]

B. and producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently and to heat


Can't "to heat" be parallel to "to be generate"?
"...for electricity to heat homes" sounds OK to me..although I know B is wrong because it should be "to produce"


thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

B. and producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently and to heat


Can't "to heat" be parallel to "to be generate"?
"...for electricity to heat homes" sounds OK to me..although I know B is wrong because it should be "to produce"


thanks in advance.

But then think about the meaning that would ensue. Remember, when there are parallel structures, the surrounding context must apply to both of them.

producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently
... ok, makes sense.
Unless you generate enough energy, the production of electricity is not efficient. Sure.

producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to heat homes
... doesn't make sense.
Unless you generate enough energy, it's impossible for electricity to heat homes?
Nah.

[Gaurav@GMAT]

Hi instructors,
Though I have no doubt about correctness of OA, I have observed one quirk in OA i.e. in "D. to produce energy on a commercial scale, enough for generating electricity efficiently and for heating"
What I see peculiar is adverb modifying noun; efficiently is modifying electricity. Although this usage is perfect in general use, in OG many answer choices are given wrong On same token .
May be I am missing something here. Can someone help explain, to what efficiently is modifying in sentence?

[tim]

What makes you think "effectively" is modifying "electricity"? The mere definition of an adverb should have been enough to tell you for sure that "effectively" is NOT modifying "electricity". Your job at that point is to figure out what is wrong with your understanding of the sentence, because in a fight between your interpretation and the GMAT's interpretation, the GMAT *always* wins.

[CrystalSpringston]

Hi Expert, what does "enough for ....." modify in OA?

D. to produce energy on a commercial scale, enough for generating electricity efficiently and for heating

I eliminated D because I thought enough incorrectly modified commercial scale and it was supposed to modify energy.

Thank you!

[CrystalSpringston]

B. and producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently and to heat


Can't "to heat" be parallel to "to be generate"?
"...for electricity to heat homes" sounds OK to me..although I know B is wrong because it should be "to produce"


thanks in advance.

But then think about the meaning that would ensue. Remember, when there are parallel structures, the surrounding context must apply to both of them.

producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently
... ok, makes sense.
Unless you generate enough energy, the production of electricity is not efficient. Sure.

producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to heat homes
... doesn't make sense.
Unless you generate enough energy, it's impossible for electricity to heat homes?
Nah.

Hi Ron, can we analyze the parallel issue in B in this way？
to be generated is passive voice;
To heat is active voice
Passive voice cannot be paralleled with active voice.

[CrystalSpringston]

B. and producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently and to heat


Can't "to heat" be parallel to "to be generate"?
"...for electricity to heat homes" sounds OK to me..although I know B is wrong because it should be "to produce"


thanks in advance.

But then think about the meaning that would ensue. Remember, when there are parallel structures, the surrounding context must apply to both of them.

producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently
... ok, makes sense.
Unless you generate enough energy, the production of electricity is not efficient. Sure.

producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to heat homes
... doesn't make sense.
Unless you generate enough energy, it's impossible for electricity to heat homes?
Nah.

Hi Ron, can we analyze the parallel issue in B in this way？
to be generated is passive voice;
To heat is active voice
Passive voice cannot be paralleled with active voice.

Hi Expert, not sure if my post has been missed. It was wrote a couple of weeks ago.
Would you pls help me with this question?
Thank you.

[RonPurewal]

Passive voice cannot be paralleled with active voice.

this ^^ is not true. where did you get this idea?

this idea can be defeated by...

... simple common sense / easy examples
e.g.
Tom fled the scene but was soon captured by the police.
My cousin joined the Air Force in 1989 and will be discharged four years from now.
(these sentences are quite clearly ok)

or...
...a quick glance through the OG
(e.g., 13th/2015 edition problems #37 and #57; 2016 edition problem #71)

[RonPurewal]

more generally—people really don't seem to do enough of that latter thing ('a quick glance through the OG').

many, many posters here have incorrect notions that would be easily debunked by a brief look through the official problems. do your homework, ladies and gentlemen!

[SUDHARSHANR592]

Hello all,
I'm having a question regarding the correct option as I always get confused with use of -ing, what if I modify the option as follows:-
F. for producing energy on a commercial scale, enough for generating electricity efficiently and for heating
In my understanding, the above option makes sense (I'm not questioning the original answer here) as the scientists are not directly involved in producing heat and producing heat is the goal of the scientists. I understand that for generating and for heating are correct because again scientists are not directly involved in doing both these actions.
If in the options both D and F are present, then which of the two is the right answer. I would still go with D as for producing, for generating and for heating seem to be parallel and distract the meaning.

[RonPurewal]

as usual, the answer is "that's worse than the correct answer—for reasons that are not tested on this exam."

__


DO NOT 'make your own versions' of GMAC's sentences.
really.
don't do it.

the GMAT only tests 1-2% of the things that can actually go wrong with english sentences (and even that may be an overestimate).
when random users try to 'edit' these sentences, the result is almost always inferior or incorrect—for reasons that the GMAT doesn't test.

making your own examples is good, but they should be...
...1/ your own examples,
...2/ SIMPLE examples, each illustrating only ONE concept (that is actually tested on this exam).

as far as the official problems are concerned, the given answer choices should be challenging enough already.
(:

[aflaamM589]

Hello experts,
C. for energy production on a commercial scale, enough for generating electricity efficiently and to heat
D. to produce energy on a commercial scale, enough for generating electricity efficiently and for heating

enough for generating electricity efficiently and to heat is modifying production in C but energy in D
Is my understanding of this kind of a modifier correct?

or is it summative apositive modifier ,the one that sums up the idea in the preceding clause?

[RonPurewal]

i have no idea what any of those terms mean. but, if you're even thinking about that kind of terminology, you are approaching this whole SC thing in entirely the wrong way.

read my post on page 1 of this thread.
this problem should be very straightforward—there are 4 choices with blatant non-parallelism, and 1 choice with correct parallelism. the rest of the stuff is basically there to distract people who are easily distracted. (:

[JbhB682]

B. and producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently and to heat


Can't "to heat" be parallel to "to be generate"?
"...for electricity to heat homes" sounds OK to me..although I know B is wrong because it should be "to produce"


thanks in advance.

Hi Sage - could you confirm in option B specifically, "to heat" and "to be generated" are infinitives ?

"To be generated" = passive version of infinitive
"To heat" == active version of infinitive

These two ARE parallel in terms of same similar grammar structure ("to heat" and "to be generated" are both infinitives which is acceptable)

However the surrounding context as part of the overall sentence is the issue with (B)

Could you confirm if my analysis on B is accurate