The investigations of many psychologist

[closeup]

Source:GMATPrep

The investigations of many psychologist and anthropologists support the generalization of there being little that is a significant difference in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different culture.
A of there being little that is a significant difference
B of there being little that is significantly different
C of little that is significantly different
D that there is little that is significantly different
E that there is little of significant differences

How to pick between D and E

[pravsr]

little of significant differences (plural seems awkward).
This clearly is wrong

[RonPurewal]

Idiomatic usage. In the phrase 'little of X', the X has to be a singular quantity. If it's plural (like 'differences'), then you have to use few.
There was very little food left over at the end of the party.
There were very few crab cakes left over at the end of the party.

Hope that helps.

[rschunti]

What all errors are in options "A" and "B". Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

To the original poster (and everyone who posts questions): please be very careful in your transcription of the problem. Please also proofread when you're done typing but before you post. Every word (and even letter) counts! We want to make sure that we're studying these exactly as written because little typos can sometimes make big differences to the interpretation.

On to A and B. More idioms! we "support the generalization that" something is so, not "of" - so A, B, and C are all wrong for that reason. A and B also contain "being" - which, while it can be used grammatically correctly, is almost always wrong on the GMAT. (There's one GMATPrep question that uses "being" correctly. One. :)

[enniguy]

Source:GMATPrep

The investigations of many psychologist and anthropologists support the generalization that there is little that is significantly different in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different culture.

In this corrected sentence, can someone please tell me what parts of speech is "little" suppose to be? As I understand,
Main Clause (The investigations of many psychologist and anthropologists support the generalization) (that) sub clause (there is little that is significantly different in underlying mental processes manifested by people from different culture).

I am not able to figure out the second that (in the sub clause) and sub clause itself.

[RonPurewal]

In this corrected sentence, can someone please tell me what parts of speech is "little" suppose to be?

in this sentence, it functions as a noun. you can use "much" in the same way: there is much that is different...

--

more examples of the same type of thing:
there is much to be said about topic X.
there is little to be said about topic X.
there are things to be said about topic X.

[elevinty]

isn't also in A B and C, THERE has to be followed by BE verb or sometimes another verb then a subject in order for the usage of this expletive to be right?

[mschwrtz]

That's right, but not really something you need to know for the GMAT.

In fact, I'm not even going to get into that very fine point about grammar here, since it would just be needlessly confusing. If other users are curious, just google syntactic expletive.

I learned the terms, as I learned so much about English, while teaching at a international school. Students of English as a foreign language would ask, Why didn't the author use a reduced adjective clause? or Is this word a demonstrative pronoun or a demonstrative adjective? or Shouldn't there be a verb right after this expletive? and I would answer, Huh?

[elevinty]

thank you

[tim]

:)

[sivai87]

Hello Ron/Stacy,

Is'nt "different from" the right idiom?? This is the only reason i chose E over D.. :(

Why is that the idiom "different from" not important here? Any specific reasons???

Sivai
Thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

Hello Ron/Stacy,

Is'nt "different from" the right idiom?? This is the only reason i chose E over D.. :(

this quote reflects a very serious misunderstanding -- you seem to believe that there is only one correct idiom for any particular verb.
this is not true!
just because one idiom is correct, others don't have to be wrong!

you can write
X is different from Y (*if* X and Y are the two things that are actually being contrasted)
or you can write
there are differences in X (*if* X is a general class of things among which differences are found)

[AliciaZhou]

Hi Ron,

There is a sentence like this:
"However, some experts argue that there is little evidence that patients given the drug are any better off a few years later"

In this way, can I write the answer D like this?

The investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support that there is little generalization that is significantly different in the underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures.

If it is wrong, explain why,pls
Thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

In this way, can I write the answer D like this?

The investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support that there is little generalization that is significantly different in the underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures.

If it is wrong, explain why,pls
Thanks in advance

well, that may possibly be a sentence from the standpoint of pure grammar -- i.e., if you simply don't think at all about what the sentence means -- but it's a nonsense sentence.
in other words, this sentence may be some sort of purely grammatical construct, but it doesn't really have a meaning -- and, moreover, i can't actually tell what it is supposed to mean.
what meaning did you intend here?

--

also -- i think this is rather unlikely, but i may as well address the possibility:
it may be the case that you were simply rearranging the words of this sentence at random -- in other words, just trying to create some sort of purely grammatical construction, without actually thinking about what it means.

if that *is* what you were trying to do (i assume it isn't, but just making sure), then it's really not a good idea; it's impossible to separate right and wrong from the meaning of a sentence, so it's likewise impossible to say whether a sentence that is basically a random cluster of words is "correct".
for instance, the dog ran down the street is a sentence; it is grammatically correct, and it actually means something.
if you change this sentence to the street ran down the dog, then you could make a case that it's still a grammatical sentence -- but it clearly doesn't mean anything anymore, so it's now incorrect.