Adjective adjective

[sandeeps.gmat]

If in a sentence a particular noun has been modified by two or more adjectives such as
...............adjective1 adjective2 noun.......
Q. Here do the adjective1 modifies the noun or the adjective2? or it varies according to situation?

e.g. more efficient engines.

Plz. clarify

Will be thankful for reply

[Willy]

If in a sentence a particular noun has been modified by two or more adjectives such as
...............adjective1 adjective2 noun.......
Q. Here do the adjective1 modifies the noun or the adjective2? or it varies according to situation?

e.g. more efficient engines.

Plz. clarify

Will be thankful for reply

In your example 'more efficient engines',

MORE is working as an adverb not as adjective, hence MORE is correctly modifying adjective - 'efficient' - which further is modifying the noun - engines.

The rule is simple, if you have adjective, it can only modify nouns not adjectives but adverb can modify verb, adverb or adjective.

[sandeeps.gmat]

Hey willie thanks for ur reply, But it cud also mean more no. of efficient engines.
U wud like to see the expalanation on pg. no.261 of SC strategy guide, in the chapter Verbs & Comparison extra.
1. More here is not acting as an adverb, otherwise question of ambiguity is false.( We have even more efficient engines than before)
2. According to the rule that Adj. modifies noun only then more and efficient both modifies engines, therefore it means we have efficient engines and have them in greater nos.
so where is the ambiguity as explained in pg. 261.

[Willy]

Hey willie thanks for ur reply, But it cud also mean more no. of efficient engines.
U wud like to see the expalanation on pg. no.261 of SC strategy guide, in the chapter Verbs & Comparison extra.
1. More here is not acting as an adverb, otherwise question of ambiguity is false.( We have even more efficient engines than before)
2. According to the rule that Adj. modifies noun only then more and efficient both modifies engines, therefore it means we have efficient engines and have them in greater nos.
so where is the ambiguity as explained in pg. 261.

The ambiguity has been described in book as follows,

We have even more efficient engines than before.

Does this sentence mean that we have a greater quantity of efficient engines? Or do we have engines that are more efficient?

Oh, I see where you are getting confused. MORE can also act as Pronoun and mean 'A greater or additional amount or degree' (Case 1 of ambiguity as described by the book, see blue part above) As I said in my last post, MORE can act as Adverb and work as modifier to adjective (case 2 of ambiguity as described by the book, see red part above). So, in simple words you can the ambiguity is whether MORE is acting as Pronoun or Adverb.

Hope I am making some sense here. Please correct me in case I am wrong.

[RonPurewal]

when you guys are analyzing this stuff, don't forget the most important thing, which is that you will never, ever, ever have to analyze these structures by themselves.
you'll always get them in the context of a problem that has different answer choices -- so the whole issue of "is this, by itself, ambiguous?" is a non-issue.

in other words --

* if you see a potential ambiguity, and there's another choice that fixes that ambiguity, then you should generally favor the latter choice (unless it has other, more egregious errors).

* on the other hand, if you see a potential ambiguity and it's NOT fixed in any of the answer choices, then it must not be an issue in the first place.

don't forget that the test is multiple-choice!

[Willy]

Ron, thank you for the reply. Always appreciate your views!

[RonPurewal]

Ron, thank you for the reply. Always appreciate your views!

sure.

[sandeeps.gmat]

Thanks Ron, for the reply. This might be the intelligence part that GMAT demands.

[jlucero]

Only this plus your writing, quant, verbal, and integrated abilities for 3.5 hours. That's why b-schools make you take it though.