The ability of scientists to provide models of the

by **Sputnik** Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:30 am

The ability of scientists to provide models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to changing conditions, like seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions, have become ever more accurate.
A. The ability of scientists to provide models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to changing conditions, like seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions, have become ever more accurate.
B. The ability of scientists has become ever more accurate in providing models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to changing conditions, such as seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions.
C. Scientists have become able to provide ever more accurate models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to such changing conditions as seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions.
D. Scientists have become ever more accurate in their ability for providing models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to changing conditions, like seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions.
E. Scientists’ ability to provide models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to such changing conditions as seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions have become ever more accurate.

Confusion regarding choice C

Do we say

X's ability in doing something

or
X's abilty to do something

I felt C is awkward.... Scientists have become able to provide ever

Please help
Thanks
Sputnik

by **Guest** Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:28 am

We prefer such as and not like. Like is used for comparing nouns
A- Eliminate - like
B- ability of scientist is not the one which became accurate. Eliminate B
C. - Sounds logical to other answer choices
D. Eliminate - like
E. - Scientist ability is not become accurate. It is models that is accurate

by **RonPurewal** Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:14 am

Sputnik Wrote:I felt C is awkward.... Scientists have become able to provide ever

you're not parsing it correctly: 'ever more accurate' is an indivisible phrase here. 'ever more accurate' is roughly equivalent to 'getting more and more accurate all the time'.

once you make that realization, the right answer should make more sense.

by **Guest660** Sat Jul 19, 2008 11:06 am

Hi Ron,

Doesn't C change the meaning ...

A - says ability has become more accurate ??
B - more accurate models ??

by H Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:25 am

I believe that "able" is an adjective, and so it has to modify a noun.
Usually an adjective is placed right before or after the noun that it tries to modify.
"able" in C seems weird to me because it is trying to modify (I believe) "the scientists".
Is "able" a special adjective that is allowed to have such flexibility?
If not, could you share some other examples?
Thanks in advance.

by **RonPurewal** Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:52 am

Guest660 Wrote:Hi Ron,

Doesn't C change the meaning ...

A - says ability has become more accurate ??
B - more accurate models ??

well, sure, but remember that you're allowed to change the meaning of a sentence if the original "meaning" doesn't make any sense, as is the case here.

an ability can't be "accurate", because an ability is not something that can be compared quantitatively to a "true" or "target" mark of some sort. by contrast, models (which can approximate true quantitative phenomena), shots at a target (which can come close to the center of the target), and so on can be "accurate".

so yes, (c) changes the meaning, i guess, but it's a desirable change of meaning - because it takes the sentence from a nonsense phrasing to a phrasing that actually makes sense.

by **RonPurewal** Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:55 am

H Wrote:I believe that "able" is an adjective, and so it has to modify a noun.
Usually an adjective is placed right before or after the noun that it tries to modify.
"able" in C seems weird to me because it is trying to modify (I believe) "the scientists".
Is "able" a special adjective that is allowed to have such flexibility?
If not, could you share some other examples?
Thanks in advance.

nothing special here; all adjectives can do this.
specifically, any adjective can be separated from the noun it's trying to describe by verbs of equivalence ("copulative verbs"), such as be, become, seem, look, and so on.

for instance:
that food looks hot.
this bar seems crowded.
here, "hot" and "crowded" are adjectives, describing, respectively, "food" and "bar", but these two sentences are clearly ok.
same sort of deal with choice (c).

by **cesar.rodriguez.blanco** Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:22 pm

Hi RON. I do not understand clearly the difference between answers B, C and E. I do not see the difference
I do not know what "has become more accurate"? The ability or the scientist?
Is there any difference between "changing conditions, such as seasonal and daily cycles" and "such changing conditions as seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions"?
Moreover, I thought "Scientists have become able to provide ever" is wordy because you can say "Scientist can provide"? What is wrong with my reasoning?

Thanks.

B. The ability of scientists has become ever more accurate in providing models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to changing conditions, such as seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions.

C. Scientists have become able to provide ever more accurate models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to such changing conditions as seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions.

E. Scientists’ ability to provide models of the atmosphere’s complex responses to such changing conditions as seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions have become ever more accurate.

by **RonPurewal** Thu Aug 27, 2009 5:38 am

cesar.rodriguez.blanco Wrote:I do not know what "has become more accurate"? The ability or the scientist?

actually, neither.

it would be nonsense to say that an ability is "accurate".
it would be similarly nonsense to say that a person (here, a scientist) is "accurate".

the model should be "accurate".
choice (c) does this.
the other two don't. in both (b) and (e), the ability is described as "accurate". that doesn't make sense.

Is there any difference between "changing conditions, such as seasonal and daily cycles" and "such changing conditions as seasonal and daily cycles or different planetary conjunctions"?

those are basically the same.

in general, there is no consistent way to distinguish between "such X as Y" and "X such as Y", nor is one of those generally preferred to the other.

Moreover, I thought "Scientists have become able to provide ever" is wordy because you can say "Scientist can provide"? What is wrong with my reasoning

you're dividing this in the wrong place.

it's actually
scientists can provide ever more accurate models

where "ever more ADJ" is an idiomatic expression that means "increasingly ADJ".

by **ravi.bamalwa** Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:43 am

Ablilty to provide VS Ability for providing VS Ability in providing.

Please correct me if im mistaken but the first phrase above is the only one which is idiomatically correct. The remaining two are unidiomatic.Hence, by this rule itself, choices B and D can be eliminated, leaving choices A C and E.

Now we see that ability is singular.So "has" has to be used with it.That eliminates A and E.

So, C is left and its the correct answer.

If there are any other idioms related to ability, please do let me know.Thanks.

by **RonPurewal** Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:35 am

ravi.bamalwa Wrote:Ablilty to provide VS Ability for providing VS Ability in providing.

Please correct me if im mistaken but the first phrase above is the only one which is idiomatically correct. The remaining two are unidiomatic.Hence, by this rule itself, choices B and D can be eliminated, leaving choices A C and E.

that's correct.

by **Aksy** Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:22 am

Before I encountered this problem on GMATPrep, I was of the belief that words such as "more" and "less" should always be followed by "than" because words such as "more" are used in comparison to something else. In this case, when we say that something has become more accurate, should't it indicate more accurate than what? - More accurate than it was previously or more accurate than something else?

by **Aksy** Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:02 pm

Could somebody throw some light on this please?

by **tim** Fri Feb 17, 2012 8:26 pm

first, be careful bumping questions. every time you do that it puts the question at the absolute end of the queue for us to answer. bumping a question is the most effective way to cause a delay in getting your question answered..

to answer your question, "ever more X" is different from "more Y than Z", and both are valid. "ever more X" is in fact a comparison; it just inherently compares the level of X at any given point in time to the level at any point in the past..

by **Aksy** Fri Feb 17, 2012 9:59 pm

Thanks for replying Tim. That sure helps me understand comparisons better. Also, I will keep the advice about bumping a thread in mind. Thank you.

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