SC: By merging its two publishing divisions, the

[tim]

Does it matter what the GMAT *says* in its explanations? It seems to me the only relevant question is whether the technique Ron and I have discussed endlessly on the forum steered you wrong on this problem. In other words, did using our approach cause you to get the problem wrong? If not, then it seems there is no need to question the approach or to complain about it. :)

[RonPurewal]

Would you mind take a look at SC 106 (I understand I can't post OG question) In the offical answer, emission is inanimated and agrees in number with verb can and thus is "eligible" according to criterias mentioned above. But in this OG question, "which" skipped emission to modify technique. Therefore, in our example, I guess we can make a case to say that which can skip counrty to modify market because "in the country" is just a prepositional phrases that modifies "market" IF there isn't a choice like E that solves this ambiguity?

Please let me know if I misunderstood anything. It's quite frustrating to learn some "golden" SC rules and only to find out there is exception to it.

Thanks in advance for your help!

i'm noticing a bigger underlying problem here. namely, you're paying far too much attention to the individual answer choices, and not nearly enough to the DIFFERENCES in those choices.

you shouldn't look at individual choices and try to conjure what's wrong with them.
that's possible-- but only if you have the skill set of an experienced professional editor. (and, if you had that kind of skill set, you wouldn't need to be studying SC.)

rather, you should think about what's going on with an eye to the specific differences in the choices.

in the problem at hand, there's a clear split between "country's ... market" and "... market in the country".
in that split, the order of the words is what's changing ... so, you should think about the order of the words!
if you're thinking in this way, it's pretty easy to see that the issue is the placement of "market" next to the modifier that follows.

[RonPurewal]

notice that you have a responsibility here:
when you read an answer key, DON'T just say "ok, sure, those are the errors".
instead, GO BACK AND FIND A DIFFERENCE that would serve as a CLUE to think about the issue(s) described in the answer key.

this is probably the single biggest reason why people find SC so hard: they try to "think like an answer key". i.e., they to go through each choice individually, trying to divide errors essentially by pure serendipity.
don't do it.
the answer choices aren't going to describe splits; they're meant only to be "answer keys", not "thought-process keys". unfortunately, the thought process is the issue here.

[BobW599]

Does it matter what the GMAT *says* in its explanations? It seems to me the only relevant question is whether the technique Ron and I have discussed endlessly on the forum steered you wrong on this problem. In other words, did using our approach cause you to get the problem wrong? If not, then it seems there is no need to question the approach or to complain about it. :)

Hi Ron & Tim,

About the OG SC 106 question discussed here:
If "which" in (A) choice refer to "a technique", then it violated the rule "which" stands for the ELIGIBLE noun that's closest to the comma. ( "a technique called proton-induced X-ray emission" is not a noun+prep+noun phrase)

If "which" in A choice refer to "proton-induced X-ray emission", why choice (C)" A technique originally developed for detecting air pollutants, called proton-induced X-ray emission, which xxx" is wrong? And Ron also also said that"As you wrote, we're talking about a name, not a process. ("Called xxxx" means that xxxx is a name.) There's no potential ambiguity"”the same noun can't refer to a process and to its name at the same time.
Names can't quickly do xxxx stuff; only chemical processes can. in the p102431 post(I don't know why I can't post links in the reply):


BTW in the following posts, Ron, Jonathan and Stacey all gave some explanations, which are different from each other.
p22103
p5207
p102431

I'm not challenging the rule here. But this question really confuses me with the usage of "which". I can't solve the problem by Ron's "which" rule.

Many Many thanks for your help!

[RonPurewal]

in that example they appear to allow the same latitude for "a technique (called ____), which..." as for "noun1 (prep + noun2), which...".

in any case, this isn't an issue in that problem, since there's no other choice in which "which" is placed directly next to "technique".

[RonPurewal]

more importantly, this thread is not about that problem, so, no more discussion of that problem in this thread. if the problem is in GMAT prep, please start a new thread for it.
(if the problem is NOT in GMAT prep, then technically we shouldn't be discussing it here at all, per GMAC's request.)

thanks.

[gbyhats]

Hi Dear Manhattan Instructors :)

Can I ask what makes choice D unfavorable?

Because "increase in"?

--

I copy & paste the complete OA version (choice E) and choice D version below:

[OA]
E. By merging its two publishing divisions, the company will increase to 10 percent from 6 percent its share of the country’s $21 billion book market, which ranges from obscure textbooks to mass-market paperbacks.

[wrong]
D. By merging its two publishing divisions, the company will increase in its share, from 6 percent to 10 percent, of the $21 billion book market in the country, which ranges from obscure textbooks to mass-market paperbacks.

[RonPurewal]

that's problematic, yes.

what's easier to notice, though, is the placement issue:
• "which" clearly describes the book market (not the country).
• in E, "which" directly follows "book market".
• in D, "which" is unnecessarily removed from "book market".
• so D is objectively worse than E.

[gbyhats]

Gotcha!!!

Thank you very much Ron!!!

[RonPurewal]

sure.

[DavidK746]

From below sentence(which you covered during thursdays with Ron) which can modify the noun before the prepositional phrase.

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

So I thought the "which" in answer choice B would modify the book market and not country
"book market in the country, which"

Ron, could you help a little with this?

[AsadA969]

I dedicated to my father a song describing many of the times we had spent together as a child (good, easily readable sentence)

here the intended meaning is that I dedicated a song to my father, recalling our childhood memories to my father.
here, we means father and son simultaneously. Ron, is it possible for father and son to be child simultaneously? Isn't it weird sentence? sorry for posting in the old thread.
thanks.

[tim]

This seems more like a sociology question than a question about sentence correction. Can you clarify what you mean and why it is relevant to the GMAT?

[tim]

From below sentence(which you covered during thursdays with Ron) which can modify the noun before the prepositional phrase.

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

So I thought the "which" in answer choice B would modify the book market and not country
"book market in the country, which"

Ron, could you help a little with this?

"which" always modifies the closest eligible noun. Please search our forums for the phrase "closest eligible noun" if you need further clarification.

[AsadA969]

This seems more like a sociology question than a question about sentence correction. Can you clarify what you mean and why it is relevant to the GMAT?

Ron's actual sentence:
I dedicated to my father a song describing many of the times we had spent together as a child (good, easily readable sentence)

Probably, it is not a sociology question; it may be a logical question. The word"child" definitely have a range in age. If someone's age is 50, you can't say he/she is a child. Suppose, your son's age is 15 and your age is 40. Your son dedicated to you a song, which describes many of the times you (you and your child) had spent together as a child. if your son dedicate something to you recalling your childhood, his age must be 5 (15-10) and your age will be 30 (40-10). if your age was 30 in that time, should you say: you were a child when you were at the age of 30?
My question is: if you were not a child at that time, should you use WE simultaneously?
Thanks.