With an awareness that there are connotations associate

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

hello!

This is from one of your previous posts

when you start a sentence with "With ...", this modifier should modify the subject and/or action of the following clause.

viking-age-scandinavia-t8883.html

I chose A because of this reasoning :
With an awareness that there are connotations associated with the numbers 1 and 2 and the letters A and B , companies conducting

So the meaning as far as I understand is :
The companies with an awareness.....conduct consumer taste foods or beverages.

But Stacey's post above has something else to offer (Though I agree with her post ,I'm un able to distinguish the meaning.


Please help.

EDIT : Also the with..is a prepositional modifier and it must modify the action of the verb (choose) . So I'm even more confused or this is because I'm trying to prepare too much for the exam?

i maintain that the principal issue with choice (a) is unrelated to the "with" issue. instead, the primary problem with (a) lies in its meaning.

the problem with (a) is that it says only that companies are aware "that there are connotations". in other words, literally, the companies just know that there are connotations -- in other words, that connotations (of some sort) exist -- but the companies don't necessarily know what those connotations are.
the correct answer, on the other hand, explicitly states that the companies are "aware of the connotations" -- i.e., aware of the actual nature of those connotations.

analogy:
i am aware that discounts are available this weekend.
--> i know that there ARE discounts, but i don't necessarily know the specifics.
i am aware of the discounts available this weekend.
--> i actually know the specifics (percentages or whatever) of the discounts.

[li.xi811]

Hi Ron,

Can I also eliminate (A) based on the idiomatic usage of "aware"? According to the Manhattan SC guide, "with an awareness that-clause" and "with an awareness of noun" are wrong. (e.g., WITH AN AWARENESS THAT danger was near, he fled.)

Do the other four choices have any other problems besides wordiness? Is "because of doing" always wrong? Is the "they" in (B) and (E) ambiguous?

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

Can I also eliminate (A) based on the idiomatic usage of "aware"? According to the Manhattan SC guide, "with an awareness that-clause" and "with an awareness of noun" are wrong. (e.g., WITH AN AWARENESS THAT danger was near, he fled.)

Eh. "With an awareness of..." is not wrong in general.

If you are referring to a situation in which an individual/entity is specifically aware of something, THEN "with an awareness xxxx" is inferior, because you can just write "aware xxxx" instead.
More importantly, there's no reason to consider this issue in individual choices. A simple comparison should convince you that "aware..." is clearly better than "with an awareness...", and thus that you can eliminate the latter.

If you are discussing the consequences of such an awareness more generally"”i.e., not referring to a specific individual or entity that is "aware of" whatever situation"”then this construction could well be perfectly acceptable.
E.g., A fast reaction time is only useful when paired with an awareness of one's environment.

[RonPurewal]

Do the other four choices have any other problems besides wordiness?

I thought gmat prep had answer explanations now. Maybe it doesn't. Hmm.

In any case"”yes. They MUST have problems besides wordiness, since wordiness isn't actually an error.

* (A), (C), and (E) don't deliver the intended meaning.
I.e., these choices don't actually say that the companies know what the connotations are. It just says that the companies know "that there are connotations".
This is a HUGE difference. If the distinction is not immediately obvious to you, consider the following sentences:
1/ I know that there are passwords for all of your bank accounts.
2/ I know the passwords for all of your bank accounts.
Yeah.

[RonPurewal]

* Modifiers like "...(that) they are aware of" are not ok in formal English; you'd want "of which they are aware" (or something totally different, e.g., "that they know") instead.
Similarly:
the person I spoke to --> no; the person to whom I spoke --> yes.
the stores (that) most people shop at --> no; the stores at which most people shop --> yes.
The "no"s here are worth noticing because they are cornerstones of SPOKEN English (i.e., an altogether different language). If English isn't your first language, then avoiding these will, ironically, be much easier than if it were.

[RonPurewal]

* (C) has the problem described in this link:
post26678.html#p26678

In other words, "an awareness of the letters A and B having connotations" has two different meaning issues:
1/ it mistakenly refers to an awareness of the letters themselves, rather than to an awareness of their connotations;
2/ it's a reference to "the letters A and B having connotations...", which weirdly implies that there are other letters A and B that don't have such connotations.

These issues are on top of the meaning issue that this choice already shares with (A) and (E), as described above. So that's three meaning errors in a single construction!

[RonPurewal]

* I wouldn't say that the plural pronouns in (B) and (E) are 100% wrong, but I do find them weird. However, there are already other reasons to eliminate those choices, as explained above.
The pronoun "it" in choice E, on the other hand, has absolutely no antecedent whatsoever, since "connotations" is plural.

[li.xi811]

Thank you so much for the thorough explanations, Ron! You are the best!

[jlucero]

Glad it makes sense.

[samwong]

Hi Ron,

hello!

This is from one of your previous posts

when you start a sentence with "With ...", this modifier should modify the subject and/or action of the following clause.

viking-age-scandinavia-t8883.html

I chose A because of this reasoning :
With an awareness that there are connotations associated with the numbers 1 and 2 and the letters A and B , companies conducting

So the meaning as far as I understand is :
The companies with an awareness.....conduct consumer taste foods or beverages.

But Stacey's post above has something else to offer (Though I agree with her post ,I'm un able to distinguish the meaning.


Please help.

EDIT : Also the with..is a prepositional modifier and it must modify the action of the verb (choose) . So I'm even more confused or this is because I'm trying to prepare too much for the exam?

i maintain that the principal issue with choice (a) is unrelated to the "with" issue. instead, the primary problem with (a) lies in its meaning.

the problem with (a) is that it says only that companies are aware "that there are connotations". in other words, literally, the companies just know that there are connotations -- in other words, that connotations (of some sort) exist -- but the companies don't necessarily know what those connotations are.
the correct answer, on the other hand, explicitly states that the companies are "aware of the connotations" -- i.e., aware of the actual nature of those connotations.

analogy:
i am aware that discounts are available this weekend.
--> i know that there ARE discounts, but i don't necessarily know the specifics.
i am aware of the discounts available this weekend.
--> i actually know the specifics (percentages or whatever) of the discounts.

Ron,

1) In the past, you mentioned that we cannot change the meaning of the original sentence unless we have to. So, how do we know whether the companies are aware of the actual nature of those connotations?

2) I thought the usage of "there are" is to emphasize something. ie: "There are 30 students in my English class."
Thus, I chose A. I thought the author wanted to emphasize that "THERE ARE connotations associated with...". Do I have a valid point?

Thank you.

[RonPurewal]

1) In the past, you mentioned that we cannot change the meaning of the original sentence unless we have to. So, how do we know whether the companies are aware of the actual nature of those connotations?

* There is nothing sacred about the original meaning. (Put another way, it doesn't matter which choice is choice A.)

* According to the sentence, the companies are intentionally avoiding the use of "A", "B", "1", "2", etc. So, common sense dictates that they're aware of the reason; they are certainly not avoiding those labels at random!

[RonPurewal]

2) I thought the usage of "there are" is to emphasize something. ie: "There are 30 students in my English class."
Thus, I chose A. I thought the author wanted to emphasize that "THERE ARE connotations associated with...". Do I have a valid point?

Thank you.

"There is / there are..." is just another way of saying that things exist, or that they are in a certain place.

It's certainly not a way of expressing emphasis. As far as the GMAT is concerned, there's no difference between "there are Xs" and "Xs exist", and there's no difference between "there are Xs in this place" and "Xs are in this place".

---- YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE FOR THE TEST ----

In terms of the GMAT, as I stated above the line, there's no difference.

In general usage, in fact, the construction without "there is/are" is generally more emphatic.
e.g.,
Mr. Wong, there are two people in your office. --> ok, we're just counting people, presumably for some reason mentioned earlier in the conversation.
Mr. Wong, two people are in your office. --> I specifically want to draw your attention to the people. "They want to see you", or "You should be aware that they're there; maybe you don't want them there."

[RonPurewal]

Thus, I chose A. I thought the author wanted to emphasize that "THERE ARE connotations associated with...". Do I have a valid point?

* If you just write "there are connotations", you still aren't saying that anyone is aware of them.

* You're trying to defend a wording that contradicts the wording of the official correct answer.
There's no point in asking whether you "have a valid point" here. The answer is no. If you disagree with the official answer, then you're incorrect.

[qianruS779]

Dear Instructors,

I want to understand more the choice answer B. Does B have any grammatical errors or only the problem of changing the intended meaning?

Thank you very much!

Best, Song

[RonPurewal]

no grammatical problems, really.

but that's a pretty big change in the meaning!