Though most people take it for granted now, the nationwide

[tim]

thanks samwong..

[rustom.hakimiyan]

The only difference b/w A and B is meaning- correct?

Nationwide admission vs. admission of nationwide?

Also, if choice had ", but it" instead of ",and it" - would that make it correct?

Thanks.

[jlucero]

The only difference b/w A and B is meaning- correct?

Nationwide admission vs. admission of nationwide?

Also, if choice had ", but it" instead of ",and it" - would that make it correct?

Thanks.

yes and (i'm assuming you mean choice e) yes

Although both of these sentences are written in an awkward fashion, I wouldn't officially eliminate either one except for those 2 issues.

[BernardK777]

In answer choice a, is the introduction of the pronoun "it" before its antecedent, "the nationwide admission..." grammatically correct? Is this always allowed?

Thank you!

[RonPurewal]

In answer choice a, is the introduction of the pronoun "it" before its antecedent, "the nationwide admission..." grammatically correct? Is this always allowed?

Thank you!

if the "it" is in a modifier (and the noun appears subsequently in the main sentence), this sort of thing is quite common.

on the other hand, this doesn't work the other way around. i.e., you can't have "it" as the main subject, followed by a clarification later.

e.g.,

the pizza was cheaply made, but it was delicious.
it = pizza. no problem.

though it was cheaply made, the pizza was delicious.
it (in modifier) = pizza (main subject). no problem.
(this sentence is better written as "though cheaply made...", which is how you'd most likely see it in a correct answer; the "it" is unnecessary since the pizza is already the subject. however, this version isn't wrong.)

it was cheaply made, but the pizza was delicious.
this sentence implies that it = something other than the pizza. (so, this sentence can't work at all unless it's in a larger paragraph, in which "it" is something already specified.)

[RonPurewal]

of course, you're basically overthinking this issue.

if you see a pronoun, just think about whether...
... 1/ it represents a noun
... 2/ the pronoun and noun match (singular/plural).
if the answers are yes and yes, then the pronoun is OK.

the only exceptions you'll need to know are these:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... tml#p49622
be sure to note how specific those are. if something doesn't exactly fit one of those patterns, then points 1 and 2 above will suffice.

[sp335]

No. "admitting students" is modifying "colleges and universities", which means your option F indicates that "colleges and universities ... is a good idea"..

Are you a certified grammatician?
This along with the reasoning given by manhattan prep for why C is wrong is fallacious.

For C, the modifier is not modifying "colleges and universities" just because that's the immediate noun after the comma. It's modifying the whole complex noun phrase "colleges and universities admitting students based on their academic merit", which is the subject of the sentence and what the verb "is" is referring to. It pertains to the action as a whole "admitting" as a gerund.

For the example given by the other person: "colleges and universities admitting students based on their academic merit is a relatively new phenomenon...." admitting students is not modifying colleges and universities; it's again a complex noun phrase where admitting is a gerund with the subject of "college and universities", direct object of "students", and adverbial modifier "based on their merit".

I'm very disappointed in this huge oversight when this is online, there are people relying on this information to learn and take an important test, that this poor level of grammatical reasoning will be repeated with no inspection.

I've reported this to manhattan prep directly, and I've seen many online resources repeat this same explanation, when it might not be grammatically accurate. I hope anyone reading this can see this and see that the official reasoning given for why C is wrong is not true.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

It depends what you mean by certified grammatician (or grammarian?). The forums here are monitored by Manhattan Prep instructors: we're all 99th percentile test takers with a good knowledge of the GMAT test. We're not grammar academics, if that's what you mean.

More importantly, however, we're not trying to teach advanced grammatical analysis (which, to my best knowledge, is a field with quite a few controversies). We're trying to help students improve at the GMAT, and I fully admit that we simplify or avoid some of the more subtle grammatical issues for the sake of ease of learning and practical application.

However, I disagree with your analysis of the sentence:

"colleges and universities admitting students based on their academic merit is a relatively new phenomenon...." admitting students is not modifying colleges and universities; it's again a complex noun phrase where admitting is a gerund with the subject of "college and universities", direct object of "students", and adverbial modifier "based on their merit".

If the word 'admitting' were a gerund (i.e. a noun made out of a verb), then 'colleges and universities' would need to be a possessive form. To take a simpler example:
Steve is a great guy. He leaving the party early made it less fun. (This is incorrect - hopefully it sounds odd.)
Steve is a great guy. His leaving the party early made it less fun. (This is okay.)
To bring it back to the example above, we'd need to write:
Colleges' and universities' admitting students based on their academic merit is a relatively new phenomenon.
Now, on a more local point, GMAT really doesn't favor this kind of extended noun phrase and we could be pretty suspicious of it as an awkward in any case.

[sp335]

I get that y'all are 99th percentile test takers which is your own test taking abilities, but that doesn't mean you can teach properly. I find it very distasteful that this "explanation" for C was going around on multiple forums when it's clearly wrong.
Regardless of whether the sentence itself was awkward and not the correct answer, the modifier was not referring to "Colleges and universities".

Also, I actually don't care about the example some other person who's not a certified test-making board member came up with, so I'll not comment on your disagreement on that- you may be right; I just care about the official question itself.
My main concern was the explanation for C. Can we agree that that explanation was wrong ?

[LinaM638]

No. "admitting students" is modifying "colleges and universities", which means your option F indicates that "colleges and universities ... is a good idea"..

I still do not understand why " admitting students" is a modifier, because it feels like the gerund is used as a noun. why "Colleges and universities admitting students" cannot be the whole noun?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I still do not understand why " admitting students" is a modifier, because it feels like the gerund is used as a noun. why "Colleges and universities admitting students" cannot be the whole noun?

Please see my post above. I know it sounds like a gerund, but of course we don't pronounce '...colleges' and universities' admitting students...' differently from '...colleges and universities admitting students...' .

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I find it very distasteful that this "explanation" for C was going around on multiple forums when it's clearly wrong.
Regardless of whether the sentence itself was awkward and not the correct answer, the modifier was not referring to "Colleges and universities".

I'm not sure I understand you here. Here's the start of answer choice C:
Now taken for granted by most people, colleges and universities admitting students...
In my interpretation, "Now taken for granted by most people" is a modifier that modifies 'colleges and universities'. We also have another modifier "admitting students" that is also modifying 'colleges and universities'. I disagree with you that this is a gerund (as explained in my post above, although it's going to be hard to convince you if you don't accept my examples...). In our strategy guide, we describe this kind of modifier as a NOUN -ing modifier. I.e. an "-ing" word after a noun modifies that noun. For example, in the sentence 'I saw a bird flying in the sky.', "flying in the sky" is modifying "bird". I think I agree with you that answer C is not saying that it's all colleges and universities that are taken for granted, but only the ones that admit on merit, but that doesn't solve the meaning issue. The intended meaning of the sentence is that the admissions process is taken for granted, not the institutions.

Perhaps some of this confusion is caused by the word 'modify'. What do you understand by that?

Also, I actually don't care about the example some other person who's not a certified test-making board member came up with, so I'll not comment on your disagreement on that- you may be right; I just care about the official question itself.

Please note that this problem is not a GMAT official problem, but one that we at Manhattan Prep wrote.