The computer company registered a $16 million net loss for

[pappup5]

Hi Ron,

Is the usage "profit went to pay" normal? I was a little confused while deciding between E and C because of this usage.
To me, it sounded as though at overseas locations the profit physically went to pay higher taxes.

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

Is the usage "profit went to pay" normal? I was a little confused while deciding between E and C because of this usage.
To me, it sounded as though at overseas locations the profit physically went to pay higher taxes.

Thanks

that's a valid insight, yes.

[pappup5]

Hi Ron,

Is the usage "profit went to pay" normal? I was a little confused while deciding between E and C because of this usage.
To me, it sounded as though at overseas locations the profit physically went to pay higher taxes.

Thanks

that's a valid insight, yes.

Thanks for confirming that Ron. I think such ambiguity is something that we are least likely to see in the real test.
Actually I eliminated C only because of this and in turn got this one incorrect.

[RonPurewal]

no, i meant that's a perfectly valid way of picturing the situation, and thus a perfectly valid way of expressing it verbally.

people talk about finances in these kinds of visual terms all the time. "money has not yet left my account." "when the funds arrive, please transfer them to your money-market account." etc.

so, yes, it's valid to say that the money "went" somewhere.

[pappup5]

no, i meant that's a perfectly valid way of picturing the situation, and thus a perfectly valid way of expressing it verbally.

people talk about finances in these kinds of visual terms all the time. "money has not yet left my account." "when the funds arrive, please transfer them to your money-market account." etc.

so, yes, it's valid to say that the money "went" somewhere.

Thanks for the clarification Ron.

[RonPurewal]

sure.

[ZhengJ600]

Sorry to dig up an old question, but just wanted to confirm the usage of "profit" here.

Isn't "profit" a countable noun?

Is it because the singular form is used here, so "profit" is modified by "much of" rather than "many of"?

Thank you.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

The noun 'profit' is uncountable: we can't count "one profit, two profits, three profits..." (although we can count 'prophets'...). All the answers use 'much', so we don't have much choice here.

Perhaps what's confusing is that the word 'profit' has a plural form. Most uncountable nouns don't have a plural: think of 'air', 'water', 'happiness' in their usual usage. In most cases we could use 'profit' and 'profits' with the same meaning and I haven't seen a GMAT problem in which you need to differentiate (I'd have to think pretty hard myself what the difference is). Consider these sentences (both are fine):
Last year the company made a large profit.
Last year the company made large profits.

However, we can get a little view into how GMAT works from the fact that they avoid the phrase 'much of their profits'. Using 'much' with a plural - even if it is an uncountable noun - is a bit odd. My view is that this is a corner of English usage with no easy solution: both 'much of the profits' and 'many of their profits' sound odd to my ears, and that's why they opt for the singular 'profit' in the correct answer.

In conclusion, I don't recommend that you start eliminating answers for this issue, but you can get a hint about the kind of sentences that GMAT prefers.

[thanghnvn]

"where..." in choice a,b and c is a relative clause, that must refer to a place. we do not have a place. "oversea" is adverb, to which "where..." clause can not refer.

a,b,c are out.

E is correct?

"Overseas" refers to a physical location, so you're fine here. (The correct answer is C.)

"Where" is not restricted to describing nouns.

Ron, pls, explain the use of "where -clause" in choice C. I think where refers to a place, working as adjective or is a subject or object, working as a noun
I live in Hanoi, where whether is hot.
where I live is not a matter. I dont like where you live.

thank you.

[ZhengJ600]

Thanks for such a detailed response. Much appreciated.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You're welcome.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Ron, pls, explain the use of "where -clause" in choice C. I think where refers to a place, working as adjective or is a subject or object, working as a noun
I live in Hanoi, where whether is hot.
where I live is not a matter. I dont like where you live.

I agree with you that the word 'where' refers to a place. As your examples show, this can be done in a few different ways. Take a look in a good dictionary for a full description of the use of 'where', such as here: https://www.lexico.com/definition/where

In GMAT, 'where' is most commonly used to introduce a noun modifier, such as in SC 873 or 903 from OG2020. The use of 'where' in the problem above, in which it refers to 'overseas', is somewhat unusual for GMAT. When I first solved this problem, I thought at first that 'where' could not refer to 'overseas', before noticing the problems with 'profits' and pronouns in the other answers.