The Environmental Protection Agency frequently puts

[RonPurewal]

whoa, you guys are missing the main point here: the word whose idiomatic usage is being tested is risk, not chance.

this is a bit hard to see in this particular sentence, so here's an analogy (which i'm making up on the spot - not part of an official question):
as small a collection as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn the attention of the recording industry.
in this case, 'collection', not 'albums', is the subject of 'has drawn' (which can be inferred from the fact that 'has' is singular).
this is the case because this sentence is equivalent to the following rearranged version:
a collection as small as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn the attention of the recording industry.

--

the same reasoning applies here; you're looking for idiomatic usage that agrees with 'risk', not 'chance'.

--!

sorry ron :-( i am little slow and don't understand how your example is applicable to "risk". could you please try to explain again? i got the right answer only by knowing the idiomatic usage of "chance of"..

thank you very much in advance!

yeah, you got lucky, then. the word "of" goes with "risk", not with "chance".

--

the analogy is meant to show that the word "chance" is, in all of these choices, part of a modifier that is entirely disposable.

the first three choices are analogous to my first sentence above:

original:
as little risk as one chance in a million of causing
analogy:
as small a collection as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn...

original:
a risk as little as one chance in a million for causing (note this is unidiomatic, but the correspondence is the same)
analogy:
a collection as small as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn

compare these side-by-side. note that the throwaway modifiers are in the same places.
the grammar is not quite the same (the second part is a prepositional phrase in the original, but a verb in my analogy). however, the correspondence is exactly the same, so the analogy is good enough for illustrative purposes.
hope that helps.

[RonPurewal]

Ron/Someone:

Could you please explain why D is wrong in this case?

Is D wrong because:

- the "a risk as little" is off?
OR
- "risk... for causing" is off?

Thanks!

the second is definitively wrong. it's risk OF, not risk FOR.

i'd also finger the first one as wrong, although i'm going to wait until i see more along those lines to decide.

[7ewis.chen]

whoa, you guys are missing the main point here: the word whose idiomatic usage is being tested is risk, not chance.

this is a bit hard to see in this particular sentence, so here's an analogy (which i'm making up on the spot - not part of an official question):
as small a collection as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn the attention of the recording industry.
in this case, 'collection', not 'albums', is the subject of 'has drawn' (which can be inferred from the fact that 'has' is singular).
this is the case because this sentence is equivalent to the following rearranged version:
a collection as small as three pirated albums has occasionally drawn the attention of the recording industry.

--

the same reasoning applies here; you're looking for idiomatic usage that agrees with 'risk', not 'chance'.

--

the last poster is correct in one sense, which is that there are correct idiomatic usages of 'chance to'.
HOWEVER,
the last poster is incorrect in this particular scenario, because 'chance to' is NOT used when 'chance' refers to a mathematical probability (as it does in this context). in the case of mathematical probabilities, you can only use 'chance of'.
for instance, you can't say this treatment has a 70% chance to cure the disease; you have to say chance of curing.

hth!

What do you mean by "equivalent"? So, you mean both B and D are correct? PLZ, explain the difference between a risk and as a little risk deeply. I've spent more than an hour in this question.

[mschwrtz]

Ron's analogy implies correctly that the following two expressions are equivalent in meaning and more importantly that the very same word determines the correct preposition in both cases:

as little risk as one chance in a million of causing

a risk as as little as one a chance in a million of causing

This does not mean that B and D are both correct. In fact, it means that risk will take the very same preposition in both cases. That correct preposition is of, not for.

[mithilesh.vnit85]

E) .a risk as little as one chance in a million for it to cause

In option E, What is "it" referring to?

A risk (which is singular)
or Substances (which is plural) and hence we can rule out this option.

Ron Please explain..

[RonPurewal]

E) .a risk as little as one chance in a million for it to cause

In option E, What is "it" referring to?

A risk (which is singular)
or Substances (which is plural) and hence we can rule out this option.

Ron Please explain..

you can use that for elimination, too.

it's clear from the context of the sentence that "it" is meant to indicate one of the substances, but the problem is, of course, that "substances" is plural.
therefore, this pronoun is stranded -- it doesn't properly stand for anything at all.

[vjsharma25]

Can we eliminate the option "A" on the basis of infinitive "to cause".
Original sentence means that "toxic substances present risk to cause cancer",I think this is not the intended meaning.
infinitive is used to show the intentions,so it is not proper to use infinitive here.M I correct in this reasoning?

[RonPurewal]

Can we eliminate the option "A" on the basis of infinitive "to cause".
Original sentence means that "toxic substances present risk to cause cancer",I think this is not the intended meaning.
infinitive is used to show the intentions,so it is not proper to use infinitive here.M I correct in this reasoning?

yeah, "risk to VERB" isn't an acceptable idiom.

also, you are correct: it's possible to have "risk" next to "to VERB" -- if those two are elements of completely different constructions.
for instance,
james wants to take a big risk to impress his girlfriend
... is a correct sentence, but it's important to realize that "risk to VERB" is *NOT* an idiomatic construction in this sentence -- the "risk" and the "to VERB" are parts of two completely different constructions. i.e., james wants to take a big risk is the main clause here, and to impress his girlfriend is a modifier that expresses his purpose.

[vjsharma25]

Thanks Ron for strengthening my concept further,which in fact is based on your posts in this forum :).

[jnelson0612]

Good to hear. Ron is fantastic, isn't he? :-)

[llzzyy234]

Hi Ron:
I understand why OA is B, but I want to ask if I change the option B to these styles

1) as little a risk as one chance in a million of causing
2) a risk as little as one chance in a million of causing
3) risk as little as one chance in a million of causing

Are these still OK? I think 2) should be right as you have already mentioned. Are "present risk" and "present a risk" both OK?

[agarwalmanoj2000]

Hi Ron,

I read in one of your post that preposition + ing is wrong, so I used the same logic to cross out option B but OA is B.

(B) as little risk as one chance in a million of causing

Please advise, what I am missing here?

Thank you on advance.

[RonPurewal]

I read in one of your post that preposition + ing is wrong

could you quote that post, please?

i definitely never wrote that "prep + verbING" is automatically wrong. most likely, i was talking about some much more specific context (e.g., you can't write "because of verbING").

always note the context in which statements are made. if it's not a generalization, don't generalize it.

[agarwalmanoj2000]

I read in one of your post that preposition + ing is wrong

could you quote that post, please?

i definitely never wrote that "prep + verbING" is automatically wrong. most likely, i was talking about some much more specific context (e.g., you can't write "because of verbING").

always note the context in which statements are made. if it's not a generalization, don't generalize it.

I read in one of your post that preposition + ing is wrong

could you quote that post, please?

i definitely never wrote that "prep + verbING" is automatically wrong. most likely, i was talking about some much more specific context (e.g., you can't write "because of verbING").

always note the context in which statements are made. if it's not a generalization, don't generalize it.

Hi Ron,

First, I am sorry for the above confusion. Yes, you never wrote that "prep + verbING" is automatically wrong

Actually I confused preposition + VERBing with preposition + noun + VERBing rule.

I am posting my question in another post in which above rule is discussed in detail. Please advise.

post63159.html#p63159

[RonPurewal]

done