The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much res

[RonPurewal]

Aren't we altering the intended meaning by choosing "or" over "and" in answer "E" ?

This question is answered in the post directly preceding yours.

And don't question the official answers! ever!
The official correct answers are not wrong.

[thanghnvn]

The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; //in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting// some forms of cancer, the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
A. in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting
B. in addition to its possibilities to prevent or inhibit
C. besides the possibility that it prevents and inhibits
D. besides the possible preventing and inhibiting of
E. besides possibly preventing or inhibiting.

regading D and E.

I review grammar books and find the following. Ron, Manhantan experts, please, confirm the following

in E.
"besides possiblly preventing or inhibitting" is preposition+participle.

preposition+participle works exactly as participle phrase dose. These phrase must refer to a noun (normally subject) in the main clause and must be in logic place

E is correct.

in D,
"preventing and inhibiting" are work as noun because they take "possible" as adjective.

the pattern "besides+noun 1 " need a noun which is parallel with the noun 1. There is no noun in the main clause, which is parallel with "preventing and inhibiting" as a noun 1, so the D is wrong.

is my thinking correct?

[RonPurewal]

Manhantan experts,

Please start spelling "Manhattan" correctly. It's on the top of every page (and in the URL).

This is actually a big deal"”not because you'll have to spell correctly on the gmat (you won't), but because of what it represents.
here's what i mean:
you've posted on this forum hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times, but you're still misspelling "Manhattan" every time you write it, even though it's on the top of every single page of the forum.
what that means is that you're not paying attention to how stuff is written in general. i.e., you're making no effort to develop an intuition or a "feeling" for the language in general; you're just memorizing hundreds and hundreds of rules.
that's not how you becomes excellent at SC. to make it to the highest levels of SC, you need to develop an intuition -- and that starts with paying attention to things in general.

is my thinking correct?

not really.

the biggest problem in that choice is that "or" is replaced with "and". that doesn't make any sense, because "preventing" and "inhibiting" are mutually exclusive.

there's also the fact that the + verbING should be replaced with a dedicated noun form whenever possible. in this instance, that's possible for both actions (prevention, inhibition), so "the preventing" and "the inhibiting" are not ideal.

[thanghnvn]

Thank you Ron and Manhattan experts.

I fully understand why "and" in D is wrong.

"preventing and inhibiting" in D are used as noun and are refering the the general action. they are wrong because we should use action noun "inhibition and prevention" to refer to general action.

even if we use "inhibition and prevention", they are wrong because it is not clear who make "prevention and inhibition". we need a participle "preventing and inhibiting" to refer to a specific noun , " leaves" , in the main clause. this way, it is clear who do "preventing and inhibitting"

is my thinking correct?

[RonPurewal]

Thank you Ron and Manhattan experts.

I fully understand why "and" in D is wrong.

"preventing and inhibiting" in D are used as noun and are refering the the general action. they are wrong because we should use action noun "inhibition and prevention" to refer to general action.

even if we use "inhibition and prevention", they are wrong because it is not clear who make "prevention and inhibition". we need a participle "preventing and inhibiting" to refer to a specific noun , " leaves" , in the main clause. this way, it is clear who do "preventing and inhibitting"

is my thinking correct?

looks good.

[momo32]

Dear Ron，

Can I think "it" in choice C refers to tea.
Tea prevents and inhibits..... in my mind, this sentence makes sense.

THx

[RonPurewal]

Then you've got a problem with consistency. (The issue is similar to parallelism, although it's not an issue of grammatical parallelism.)

The structure of the sentence is "In addition to X, Y". This structure implies that X and Y are two observations of the same kind.

Here, "Y" says that the brewed leaves do xxxxx. So, for "in addition to" to make sense, "X" should be another statement about the brewed leaves. Not about something else (= the tea itself).

[RonPurewal]

The point is that, either way, something's broken.

If you let "it" = the tea, then you have the illogic / inconsistency described in the last post.

If you follow the actual meaning of the sentence, as required by context, then you have "it" = the brewed leaves. Singular, plural, whoops.

[dola.dhar]

Hi Ron,

I'm unable to understand why D is a wrong choice. Why is the 'and' wrong. You mention the reason as mutual exclusivity. But if we think, the tea can prevent AND inhibit (two very separate actions), versus the tea will either prevent or inhibit.

Can you please explain.

Thanks,
D

[RonPurewal]

But if we think, the tea can prevent AND inhibit (two very separate actions), versus the tea will either prevent or inhibit.

no, it can't. these are mutually exclusive.

to INHIBIT a process is to hinder, slow, or restrain it.
a process that is "inhibited" still happens—just not as fast, as efficiently, or as well. it's WORSE, but it still GOES.

if a process is "prevented" then it does not happen at all.

[RaffaeleM39]

(a) and (b) use "possibility" unidiomatically.
there are two possible idioms:
the possibility that NOUN VERB
the possibility of NOUN

Hi Ron,
where did you take this information from?
In the MGMAT SC book there isn't a "possibility" idiom, neither in chapter 9 nor in Appendix A

Best

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Common idioms can be found in any good dictionary. Take a look here: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... ossibility

However, be aware that GMAT questions tend to stick to slightly formal and sometimes old-fashioned idioms.

[RaffaeleM39]

Common idioms can be found in any good dictionary. Take a look here: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... ossibility

However, be aware that GMAT questions tend to stick to slightly formal and sometimes old-fashioned idioms.

Hi Sage. Thank you for your reply.

Please note what the instructor tim said in this exact thread previously, answering a user that looked up the idiom in the dictionary:

in the post quoted above, u said that there are 2 idioms of possibility---->possibility that and possibility of.
however , i consulted the Longman English Dictionary and found that it gives us 3 idioms, including possibility that/possibility of/possibility FOR
so, i wonder if you have missed one idiom of possibility in you previous post?

1. This is a perfect example of why you should not use non-GMAT sources to study for sentence correction. Unless you have actually seen that third idiom used correctly in a GMAT question, you should go with what Ron said. Remember the GMAT often uses different rules from what you'll see in other sources.

So now I am a bit confused. Should we use non-GMAT material, and in particular dictionaries to look idioms up, yes or no?

Thank you

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You've nicely shown a difference of opinion between us instructors! I disagree with what Tim said. It's not possible to study GMAT using only GMAT resources, as you already have a lot of knowledge of English that you're using. You need to take care, and I agree with Tim that "GMAT often uses different rules from what you'll see in other sources", but GMAT is not completely different from other sources. It tends to be a bit more formal and old-fashioned, and in some respects, to favor US English. So, sure, you need to be cautious when using a dictionary, but it helped me when I was studying for GMAT. That said, I probably only used a dictionary 10 times in my GMAT studies.

[Gui]

The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting some forms of cancer, the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
A. in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting
B. in addition to its possibilities to prevent or inhibit
C. besides the possibility that it prevents and inhibits
D. besides the possible preventing and inhibiting of
E. besides possibly preventing or inhibiting.

OA is E.

My question is: In choices A, B and C, what it refers to "tea" or "Research". I know it can't refer to health benefits as it is plural.

Please explain.

Is there a difference of usage between "in addition" and "besides" in this sentence? Or is just a red hearing? tks!