The computer company has announced that it will purchase the

[healthy312]

in terms of meaning, choice A carries no more priority than does any other answer choice.

when you're judging meaning, the only issue is "does this meaning align with context and/or common sense?" if yes, then the meaning is fine. if no, eliminate.

"the original meaning" is not really a thing.
if the original (= choice A) clashes with the context, or is just not reasonable according to ordinary common sense, then the correct answer MUST change the meaning!

Ron, May I ask why A and D rule out ?

[RonPurewal]

please read the entire discussion thread (or, at the very least, the posts by me or other moderators).

thank you.

[HemantR606]

Hi Ron,

When I solved this question, had an entirely different take on B, C and D

B & C. The first clause mainly talks about the announcement of something. So, 'part of a deal' cannot modify the clause.

D. Apart from 'it -itself' error, the sentence conveys a meaning - 'announced.........in order to make itself the largest manufacturer' which is nonsensical because announcement cannot make it the largest manufacturer.


Please let me know whether I have interpreted the answer choices in the right way.


Thank you.

[healthy312]

please read the entire discussion thread (or, at the very least, the posts by me or other moderators).

thank you.

I read it , in D , we should use itself not it because the subject is the same as it .

A, I think as a part of deal should modifier the entire preceding sentence, not the noun-950 million, right ?

[RonPurewal]

yes and yes.

[HemantR606]

Hi Ron,

When I solved this question, had an entirely different take on B, C and D

B & C. The first clause mainly talks about the announcement of something. So, 'part of a deal' cannot modify the clause.

D. Apart from 'it -itself' error, the sentence conveys a meaning - 'announced.........in order to make itself the largest manufacturer' which is nonsensical because announcement cannot make it the largest manufacturer.


Please let me know whether I have interpreted the answer choices in the right way.


Thank you.

Hi Ron,

I think, you have missed out my post because of another post that stacked up.

Can you help me out with the doubt I wrote in the quoted text?

Thank you.

[RonPurewal]

^^ nah. if there's a smaller action inside a larger clause -- and common sense makes it clear that we want to describe that smaller action -- then a modifier can most definitely describe the smaller action.

e.g.,
Today my sister ran a marathon as part of a fundraising effort for her favorite charity.
Today my sister told me that she is going to run a marathon as part of a fundraising effort for her favorite charity.
--> both sentences are fine. (the second sentence does not imply that "my sister told me ... as part of a fundraising effort", because, well, common sense.)

[RonPurewal]

hemant—
in fact, upon further reflection, the prevailing convention is in fact exactly the opposite of what you are currently thinking.

i.e., if you have a larger clause ending with a smaller action, then, if that stuff is followed by an adverb-type modifier, the default is for the modifier to describe only the smaller action.

this really isn't anything special; it's just another manifestation of our brains' tendency to relate things that are next to each other.

e.g.,
Today my sister told me that she is going to run a marathon as part of a fundraising effort for her favorite charity.
the DEFAULT is for the blue thing to describe ONLY "she is going to run a marathon".

--

what if we want to describe the whole larger clause?
in that case, if the modifier is placed afterward, the result is confusing:
Today my sister told me that she is going to run a marathon as we walked back toward the train station.
...huh?
sure, you can figure out what this one means... eventually. but you'll be super confused at first, at least for a moment.

in this type of situation, a good writer will opt to place the modifier (as usual) directly after what it actually describes:
Today my sister told me, as we walked back toward the train station, that she is going to run a marathon.
...ah, now that's a good sentence. (:

[douyang]

2. in your last respond to this question, you said that in C, "making it the largest..." is not contemporaneous with "it will purchase", but I remember that "comma, v-ing" can be used to describe "happen in the same time with the preceding sentence" or "the result of the preceding sentence" . Thereby, I think in this case, "a part of deal making it the largest..." is the result of the preceding, and it also share the same time-frame with the preceding sentence, having the same meaning of "will make it the largest... "

Thank you in advance!

no. even when the __ing describes a result, that result MUST still occur at the time of the main action. it cannot be something that occurs in any later timeframe.

e.g.,

Joshua was struck by a car, dying instantly from the impact.
--> this sentence works, because the death was instant--i.e., in the same timeframe as "joshua was struck by a car".

Joshua was struck by a car, dying from the injuries twenty minutes later.
--> this sentence is incorrect, because "dying" (the result) is no longer contemporaneous with "joshua was struck by a car".

From my understanding, "making it the largest manufacturer" occurs at the same time as "purchasing the color-printing division of a rival company". If the company buys that division, it automatically becomes the largest manufacturer in the market.

The company purchased the color-printing division of a rival company, instantly making the company the largest manufacturer in the office color-printing market.

I don't understand how above sentence differs from "Joshua was struck by a car, dying instantly from the impact.".

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

fair enough, but "it" is still incorrect. (the subject is the company, so that pronoun would have to be "itself".)

[SandeshM859]

Finally"”As far as the GMAT is concerned, you should make sure that you're tailoring your learning to a multiple-choice test.

Specifically...

* Don't worry about how to edit or re-write sentences.
Of all the ways in which students waste their time, this is easily the most significant.
You'll never have to "edit" or "fix" anything. Every problem is multiple-choice. (Even if you do come up with a "fixed" version of the sentence, the chance that it will match one of the answer choices is very low.)

* Focus on RECOGNITION.
You're emphasizing "grammar principles". That's the wrong emphasis.
Most of the "grammar principles" tested on the GMAT"”including all of the major ones (S-V agreement, parallelism, pronoun agreement, overall structure)"”are straightforward. The problem doesn't lie in knowing the "principles"; the problem lies in seeing what's actually tested in each problem.

* Look for the big things first.
Look for the following before you think about anything else, ever:
"” Parallelism (always #1"”always. If you don't see parallel structures, you'll mistake them for individual decisions.)
"” Pronoun agreement
"” S-V agreement
"” Overall sentence structure (Is the whole thing actually a sentence?)
"” Placement (Are chunks of words moved around to different locations?)
"” Use of modifiers.

If you can find these six things every time, you will already be able to get almost every SC problem correct.
Everything else is mostly distractions.

Hi Ron,

Good explanation! Although I m still unclear about the concept of ABSOLUTE MODIFIER and APPOSITIVE. I had chosen a wrong choice 'cause I thought "...a part of deal...." in B and C is an ABSOLUTE MODIFIER and NOT an APPOSITIVE.
Here's what I have understood: Mahatma Gandhi, the father of our nation, is a good man. [underlined is an appositive]
In 2000, a mere two dozen products accounted for half the increase in spending on prescription drugs, a phenomenon that is explained not just by X but by Y. [underlined is an absolute modifier].

Could you please help me in understanding this with respect to this question? Also, is there any other that we can eliminate these choices?

Thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

Good explanation! Although I m still unclear about the concept of ABSOLUTE MODIFIER and APPOSITIVE. I had chosen a wrong choice 'cause I thought "...a part of deal...." in B and C is an ABSOLUTE MODIFIER and NOT an APPOSITIVE.

that kind of terminology cannot possibly help you on this exam, in any way whatsoever.
worse -- as you just saw, here -- focusing on terminology will oftenl cause you to make wrong decisions!

...and even when you end up making a correct decision, your judgment will ALWAYS be slower if you're thinking about terminology.
(imagine how much longer it would take drivers to stop at a red light, if they had to think about the fact that it's called a "red light" before pressing the brake pedal!)

ignore terminology.
just learn how these things work.

Here's what I have understood: Mahatma Gandhi, the father of our nation, is a good man. [underlined is an appositive]
In 2000, a mere two dozen products accounted for half the increase in spending on prescription drugs, a phenomenon that is explained not just by X but by Y. [underlined is an absolute modifier].

these ^^ are two examples of exactly the same kind of modifier. not two different kinds of modifiers.

this kind of modifier can describe EITHER a noun OR the whole idea of the entire preceding sentence. if either interpretation makes sense, then the modifier is fine.

[RonPurewal]

Also, is there any other that we can eliminate these choices?

please read the whole thread.

[JingziL752]

In my opinion, and your concept of concrete appositive, it seems wrong because the appositive word, "interaction, is misplaced.

Am I right?

"interactions" are an abstract concept. (can you hold interactions in your hand? can you smell them? etc.)

in any case, you don't have to differentiate between concrete and abstract in order to use these modifiers, if that difference confuses you. instead, just recognize that this type of modifier can modify either the noun in front of it or the entire clause/action in front of it.

Hi tutor,

Sorry for bumping an old thread but Ron's explanation confused me even more... In the above explanation, I knew that "part of a deal" is a concrete word. But if I should decide whether a noun/noun phrase is a concrete word by judging whether I can hold the thing in my hand or smell it, I think that "part of deal" is not a concrete word because I cannot hold or smell it.

Thanks in advance!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I just re-read this thread and I find it confusing myself! Here are two possible solutions:

That distinction between abstract and concrete nouns is a good one in lots of situations when assessing modifiers. We often use word such as 'event', 'result', 'action', etc. to modify a whole clause, as per some of the examples above. This is different from the regular noun-modifying appositive in examples such as 'My dog, a Labrador, is young.' However, I can see your difficulty in recognizing 'a part' as being in the concrete, rather than abstract category. I can't offer an easy-to-apply rule here, other than remembering this example and using it for future reference.

For that reason I would encourage you to look for any other possible ways to solve this problem. Answer A can be eliminated for using 'which' wrongly, answer D for the wrong idiom 'to make'. Now, answer B can be eliminated for the wrong tense: the deal will make the company the largest manufacturer in the future, it doesn't make it so now. Answer C is a tricky one: 'making' is a participle and doesn't have a tense. However, it still doesn't make clear that the result of the deal will be in the future, a meaning more clearly shown in E.

In any case, we're at the high end of SC here; I'd be satisfied with a 50:50 chance of getting this one right.