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RonPurewal
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Wed Oct 22, 2014 7:20 am

3/
CarrieL721 Wrote:3. about " comma+ now verb-ing/verb-ed/with/other prepositions....", are they the same with the sentences without "now"?


i'm guessing that this is a question about grammar/mechanics. (it's pretty obvious that extra words affect meaning.)

"now" is an adverb. like other adverbs and modifiers, it has no effect on the surrounding grammar.

in general, though, i don't think this kind of structure could make sense.
consider:
• if "now" is included, then, presumably, the previous part describes something in the past. (if the sentence is already talking about the present, there's no reason to include "now".)
...but...
• __ing modifiers must adopt the timeframe of the sentence to which they're attached.

these ideas are fundamentally contradictory. (if the __ing modifier is appropriate, then "now" will be redundant; if "now" is necessary, then the __ing modifier won't work.)
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Wed Oct 22, 2014 7:22 am

^^
e.g., look at the last two choices of #25 in the 13th edition OG.
the main sentence describes things that have happened in the recent past—i.e., not "now".
the __ing part, on the other hand, describes what's true now. thus it's wrong; it can't modify (= describe) an observation from an entirely different timeframe.
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by cherryj222 Wed Oct 22, 2014 11:15 pm

RonPurewal Wrote:^^
e.g., look at the last two choices of #25 in the 13th edition OG.
the main sentence describes things that have happened in the recent past—i.e., not "now".
the __ing part, on the other hand, describes what's true now. thus it's wrong; it can't modify (= describe) an observation from an entirely different timeframe.


hi ron. If the last two choices of the #25 in 13th OG are wrong, then how can this following sentence be right?
e.g.
James has expanded the scope of his job search, now looking in Malaysia and Thailand as well as in Singapore.

To me, "has expanded …" happened in the past, while "now" indicates "looking in Malaysia and Thailand" happens currently. How can a V-ing(happening now) modify an action in the past?
Really need your help, thanks in advance.
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by CarrieL721 Fri Oct 24, 2014 6:16 pm

RonPurewal Wrote:3/
CarrieL721 Wrote:3. about " comma+ now verb-ing/verb-ed/with/other prepositions....", are they the same with the sentences without "now"?


i'm guessing that this is a question about grammar/mechanics. (it's pretty obvious that extra words affect meaning.)

"now" is an adverb. like other adverbs and modifiers, it has no effect on the surrounding grammar.

in general, though, i don't think this kind of structure could make sense.
consider:
• if "now" is included, then, presumably, the previous part describes something in the past. (if the sentence is already talking about the present, there's no reason to include "now".)
...but...
• __ing modifiers must adopt the timeframe of the sentence to which they're attached.

these ideas are fundamentally contradictory. (if the __ing modifier is appropriate, then "now" will be redundant; if "now" is necessary, then the __ing modifier won't work.)


Dear Ron,

Many thanks for all your detailed responses. They are very helpful.
By the way, you are recognized as a master in GMAT and very famous even in China.

Regards,
Carrie
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Sat Nov 01, 2014 7:23 am

cherryj222 Wrote:hi ron. If the last two choices of the #25 in 13th OG are wrong, then how can this following sentence be right?
e.g.
James has expanded the scope of his job search, now looking in Malaysia and Thailand as well as in Singapore.


that should say "...is expanding". same timeframe for both. my brain wasn't working when i wrote that, i guess.
thanks.

i edited the original post (as well as all references to it).

(the sentence could also say "james has expanded ... and is now looking in...")
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Sat Nov 01, 2014 7:24 am

CarrieL721 Wrote:Dear Ron,

Many thanks for all your detailed responses. They are very helpful.


you're welcome.

By the way, you are recognized as a master in GMAT and very famous even in China.

Regards,
Carrie


i'm honored. thanks.
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by AnupritaM283 Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:07 pm

This question is in VR 2015 Q. 70.

I have similar confusion of greater than and more than.

One of the mgmat forum posts describes that the countable uses "more than" and uncountable uses "greater than".

Above rule of thumb doesn't apply here. VR answer key is confusing as mentioned by the very first post in this thread.
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by SC312 Mon Dec 15, 2014 3:27 pm

Ron,

In the correct answer choice, it is understood that the two parts of the comparison are "now" and "when ...".

The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times more than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970’s.

Similarly, such comparison is possible between 2 differents elements of the sentence, as long as the two intended items of comparisons are comparable and similar in structure.

On the same lines, how can we explain the different parts of the comparison in the "Carnegie Foundation" problem (Q-92 of Verbal Review) in which "eight million people" are compared with "<the number of people> are enrolled....." i.e the first part is just a NOUN while the second part of the comparison is "NOUN + VERB".

Thanks
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Sun Dec 21, 2014 10:26 am

what, exactly, is your question? i'm sorry, but i can't really tell.
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by gmatkiller_24 Wed Mar 04, 2015 3:13 pm

just pick the correct choice based on the meaning.

what the sentence try to convey are two separate state of facts.
1. it has survived a close brush
2. its numbers are now greater than before.

since the #1 by no means correlates with #2, there should not be a "modifier" (e.g. with) to connect this two portion. it should have been connected by "and" or "semicolon"

that left choice A.

is the kind of thinking valid? Please clarify, Thanks!
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Fri Mar 06, 2015 2:45 pm

yes.
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by liu1993918 Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:39 am

I cross out A because of "5 times grater than".
I though this construction is wrong.

There are some examples from MGMAT GUIDE:
The man is FIVE TIMES AS OLD AS his grandson. --Right
The man is FIVE TIMES OLDER THAN his grandson. --Wrong

Thus, canI get a takeaway that "5 times older than" is not abolute wrong?
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:42 am

wait, does the guide really say that? it shouldn't say that.

both of these are things, although they are mathematically different.

if joey is 10 years old, then...
... if i'm 5 times as old as joey, then i'm 50.
... if i'm 5 times older than joey, then i'm 60. (in this case, 5 times joey's age is the amount by which i'm OLDER than joey.)

in other words, "N times older than" is the same as "N + 1 times as old as".

since the verbal section is not going to delve into mathematical nuances, all you need here is "both of these are things that exist".
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:48 am

...and, if you don't immediately understand the above, just think about percentages, for which exactly the same principles apply:

if joey is 10 years old, then...
... if i'm 20 percent as old as joey, then i'm 2 years old.
... if i'm 20 percent older than joey, then i'm 12 years old (= joey's age plus another 20 percent)

in other words, "N percent older than" is the same as "N + 100 percent as old as".

that's a complete discussion of the issue.
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Re: The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close

by RonPurewal Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:48 am

by the way, on the QUANT section...

...you certainly need to be able to distinguish between "20% of x"/"20% as much as x" and "20% more than x".

... on the other hand, you probably don't need to be able to distinguish between "5 times x"/"5 times as much as x" and "5 times more than x".