Although people in France consume fatty foods at a rate

[shengfangqiji33]

hi,instructors,i have a question here.

i remember the rule that "when you see a comparison, you need to boil the comparison down to the SINGLE NOUNS/PRONOUNS that are compared."
But in the beginning of the sentence" Although people in France consume fatty foods at a rate comparable to the United States",i wonder which thing compares to which,

i think in option A,the comparison is between "people consume sth"(after emitting the unnecessary modifiers) with "US" or the comparison is between "rate" with "US"
HOWEVER,both of my thoughts seem to vilotate the rule above,can someone help me ?

thanks in advance.

[xyin]

Hello, Ron or any American professional readers....

I have a question about the usage of "the."

It is wrong to say put "the" and "nearly" together!!!!


For example, Third of the nearly ten thousand students found MGMAT forum useful; or I should say, Third of nearly ten thousand students found MGMAT forum useful.
Which one would be correct?

please help me clarify this usage of "the." I am really confused about when should use "the" and when should not...

Ron, and Stacey ???? Help!!!

[RonPurewal]

hi,instructors,i have a question here.

i remember the rule that "when you see a comparison, you need to boil the comparison down to the SINGLE NOUNS/PRONOUNS that are compared."
But in the beginning of the sentence" Although people in France consume fatty foods at a rate comparable to the United States",i wonder which thing compares to which,

i think in option A,the comparison is between "people consume sth"(after emitting the unnecessary modifiers) with "US" or the comparison is between "rate" with "US"
HOWEVER,both of my thoughts seem to vilotate the rule above,can someone help me ?

thanks in advance.

this is the right kind of thinking. the fact that these comparisons don't make sense is precisely why the original version of the sentence is wrong.

[RonPurewal]

Hello, Ron or any American professional readers....

I have a question about the usage of "the."

It is wrong to say put "the" and "nearly" together!!!!


For example, Third of the nearly ten thousand students found MGMAT forum useful; or I should say, Third of nearly ten thousand students found MGMAT forum useful.
Which one would be correct?

please help me clarify this usage of "the." I am really confused about when should use "the" and when should not...

Ron, and Stacey ???? Help!!!

fortunately, the use of "a/an/the" is not tested on the gmat, so you need not be concerned about this sort of thing. (otherwise, you would also need to be educated as to why "third" in your sentences should actually be "athird".)

even though you don't need to worry about the use of "the", you should still know that adjectives and adverbs don't change the surrounding grammar or usage, because they are modifiers. therefore, any context in which the + quantity could be used is also a context in which the nearly + quantity, or the approximately + quantity, etc., could be used, provided that these constructions make sense.

[eybrj2]

So what is wrong with E?

"of people consuming" is incorrect; you can't write "of + NOUN + VERBing" if the action of VERBing is the focus of the preposition.
see here:
post18293.html#p18293

also, the next poster is correct: choice (e) inadvertently states that "the rate of people" is consuming fatty foods. that doesn't make any sense.

So what you're saying is that in the sturucture,
N1 + preposition + N2 + V, if the action of V is the focus of the preposition, N2 has to be possessive, and if N2 itself is the focus of the preposition, N2 doesn't have to be possessive?

Do I understand properly?

So...if I changed this into "the rate of people's consuming fatty food, could E be correct?

[zhongshanlh]

So what is wrong with E?

"of people consuming" is incorrect; you can't write "of + NOUN + VERBing" if the action of VERBing is the focus of the preposition.
see here:
post18293.html#p18293

also, the next poster is correct: choice (e) inadvertently states that "the rate of people" is consuming fatty foods. that doesn't make any sense.

So what you're saying is that in the sturucture,
N1 + preposition + N2 + V, if the action of V is the focus of the preposition, N2 has to be possessive, and if N2 itself is the focus of the preposition, N2 doesn't have to be possessive?

Do I understand properly?

So...if I changed this into "the rate of people's consuming fatty food, could E be correct?

I have the same question as you have mentioned.
so let us wait for the experts.
and further more, i want to dig deeper about this question.
I think that the construction PREPOSITION NOUN's DOING is always regarded as a wrong construction in the GMAT test?am i thinking right?pls clarify me.thank you so much!

[RonPurewal]

So...if I changed this into "the rate of people's consuming fatty food, could E be correct?

that would be correct in a technical sense, yes, but it's horribly awkward and thus not stylistically acceptable.
the gmat doesn't test style (god bless it for that -- if it did, then only native speakers of english would be able to do well on it), so this is not something you'll have to worry about.

I think that the construction PREPOSITION NOUN's DOING is always regarded as a wrong construction in the GMAT test?am i thinking right?pls clarify me.thank you so much!

read the link above -- it's possible for that construction to be correct. however, if you see it in a problem, it's certainly much more likely to be incorrect.
so, if you have to use it as the basis for a guess, then the better guess is that it's incorrect.

[mcmebk]

So what is wrong with E?

"of people consuming" is incorrect; you can't write "of + NOUN + VERBing" if the action of VERBing is the focus of the preposition.
see here:
post18293.html#p18293

also, the next poster is correct: choice (e) inadvertently states that "the rate of people" is consuming fatty foods. that doesn't make any sense.

Hi Ron

Is option E, would it be correct if it is written as "the rate of people's consuming fatty foods is about the same in France and the United States, the"

Thank you.

[RonPurewal]

So what is wrong with E?

"of people consuming" is incorrect; you can't write "of + NOUN + VERBing" if the action of VERBing is the focus of the preposition.
see here:
post18293.html#p18293

also, the next poster is correct: choice (e) inadvertently states that "the rate of people" is consuming fatty foods. that doesn't make any sense.

Hi Ron

Is option E, would it be correct if it is written as "the rate of people's consuming fatty foods is about the same in France and the United States, the"

Thank you.

see, this is why you shouldn't do this -- don't edit the sentences! don't make your own versions of GMAC's sentences!

the problem here is that you've written a sentence that doesn't contain any actual, explicit errors, but that nonetheless will never look like anything that you'll ever see on the exam. it's in that netherworld of "not wrong, but horribly written", which is what happens in about 99.99999% of cases when people try to edit GMAC's sentences.

your task is just to determine which versions are ok and which versions are not ok. (ironic, because the problem type is called "sentence correction" -- that's exactly what you shouldn't be doing, is trying to correct the sentences.)

[rohan.nanda]

Hi Ron/Stacey,

I know that C is wrong, but I can't seem to narrow it down. Is it because "their" refers to the death rates of the fatty foods?

I've got this doubt because I remember a wise man(one of the mgmat instructors) told me GMAT problems rarely have this sort of pronoun ambiguity. So there's something else that's wrong and I can't see it.

PS: Please start periodic Manhattan classes in India, I just saw your add on the right hand side of my page (Manhattan GMAT in INDIA) and my date's on Oct 23rd and the logistics just don't fall in place. If you guys can set up centers all over the country(you ought too believe me), it'd help a lot of kids.

[jnelson0612]

Hi Ron/Stacey,

I know that C is wrong, but I can't seem to narrow it down. Is it because "their" refers to the death rates of the fatty foods?

I've got this doubt because I remember a wise man(one of the mgmat instructors) told me GMAT problems rarely have this sort of pronoun ambiguity. So there's something else that's wrong and I can't see it.

PS: Please start periodic Manhattan classes in India, I just saw your add on the right hand side of my page (Manhattan GMAT in INDIA) and my date's on Oct 23rd and the logistics just don't fall in place. If you guys can set up centers all over the country(you ought too believe me), it'd help a lot of kids.

Please spread the word about the India class so we can do just that! :-)

One easy way to eliminate C hinges on the issue of active/passive wording. C has passive wording; B has active wording. The GMAT prefers active wording as long as the answer containing active wording has no grammatical issues.

[duyng9989]

So what is wrong with E?

"of people consuming" is incorrect; you can't write "of + NOUN + VERBing" if the action of VERBing is the focus of the preposition.
see here:
post18293.html#p18293

also, the next poster is correct: choice (e) inadvertently states that "the rate of people" is consuming fatty foods. that doesn't make any sense.

I followed the post. You said that :
Additionally, you said that

incidentally, if the focus of the construction is the NOUN (or pronoun) itself, then you don't use a possessive. for instance:
i saw him walking down the street --> correct, because it was him i saw, not his walking action. this sentence is, however, ambiguous, because either he or i may have been the one walking down the street.

Preposition + Ving => Awkward in GMAT

But In choice E: People is not in possessive form. I dont see what you meant?? :(

I dont understand what you mean " Verbing is the focus of the preposition". ??? What is the focus of the preposition ? How to say the verb is the focus or not focus of the preposition?

"of people consuming" is incorrect; you can't write "of + NOUN + VERBing" if the action of VERBing is the focus of the preposition.

Could you please give an example about Prepositional + Ving is correct in GMAT?


Thank you

[tim]

This boils down to an issue of meaning. You have to be able to interpret the sentence sufficiently to determine whether the noun or the action is the focus of the prepositional phrase. There is no universal rule for determining this; it just comes down to one's skill in reading comprehension.

[HanzZ]

Although people in France and the United States consume fatty foods at about the same rate, the death rates from heart disease are far lower in France.

OA says that the above sentence is correct.

However, i'm confused if we should actually rephrase the sentence to:

Although people in France and those in United States consume fatty foods at about the same rate, the death rates from heart disease are far lower in France.

My reason is because the 'correct' answer seems to be comparing people in France (HUMAN) & United States (COUNTRY) which doesn't make much sense.

Pls do shed some light on this.

first:
read this mini-lecture on the topic of "correct answers are correct".
read it over and over and over again until you understand it.
i'm not being snarky here; you will gain NOTHING from questioning the correctness of officially correct answers, and, moreover, you'll be wasting study time that you could actually be using productively.

second:
you're reading the construction as (people in france and the u.s.).
the correct interpretation is people in (france and the u.s.).

if there exists a correct interpretation of a parallel structure, then the existence of incorrect interpretations of that structure doesn't invalidate the correct interpretation. indeed, there are incorrect interpretations of just about any reasonably complex grammatical structure.

-----
Hello Ron,

Could I understand the above issue this way:

The locked in part to the left side of the parallelism marker 'and' is "˜the United States’, its counterpart "˜France’ can be found to the right of the marker so we are fine.

Also can I take it as a rule that as long as you can find all the elements appearing on the left side of the parallel structure on the right side, the structure will work just fine?

Thanks in advance!

[RonPurewal]

If you switch "right" and "left", then what you're saying here is pretty much the right idea.

Concept check:
A, B
--> Here, A is to the left of B. B is to the right of A.