Unlike using spices for cooking, in medicinal usage

[tankobe]

choice e literally says that the usage of spices is 'in small quantities', which is not the proper message. this could mean that you don't use spices very often, but, when you do, you dump 14 kilos of allspice and 12 kilos of paprika in your pan.

the sentence needs to convey the message that the spices are the things of which quantities are small. choice d conveys this message well.

one could say that d isn't 100% parallel, but it's definitely more parallel than the other choices: in cooking, (noun) is used (passive voice construction); in medicinal usage, (noun) are taken (passive voice construction).

(1) in my opinion, phrase such as in large number, on large scale, in small quatities and the likecan just function as adv to modify Verb rather than Noun.
here are one example in PREP:
1998 saw several new ventures promoting online distance learning both at the college and graduate level, but also faculty members in large numbers began(wrong, so changed)questioning whether the computer screen was an adequate replacement for the classroom.
answer key: Although 1998 saw several new ventures promoting online distance learning for both college- and graduate-level courses, it was also a year when a large number of faculty members began

however, Ron, i still need you confirmation whether i am right.

(2) like/like+Ving sth, Ving sth ..... is a wrong contruction.(except two doing function as adj)
the right construction is like Noun, Noun......

Ron, need you confirmation.

[RonPurewal]

(1) in my opinion, phrase such as in large number, on large scale, in small quatities and the likecan just function as adv to modify Verb rather than Noun.
here are one example in PREP:
1998 saw several new ventures promoting online distance learning both at the college and graduate level, but also faculty members in large numbers began(wrong, so changed)questioning whether the computer screen was an adequate replacement for the classroom.
answer key: Although 1998 saw several new ventures promoting online distance learning for both college- and graduate-level courses, it was also a year when a large number of faculty members began

however, Ron, i still need you confirmation whether i am right.

this looks accurate.

(2) like/like+Ving sth, Ving sth ..... is a wrong contruction.(except two doing function as adj)
the right construction is like Noun, Noun......

Ron, need you confirmation.

i'm sorry - i don't really understand what constructions you're talking about here. could you give a couple of examples?

[tankobe]

(2) like/like+Ving sth, Ving sth ..... is a wrong contruction.(except two doing function as adj)
the right construction is like Noun, Noun......

Ron, need you confirmation.

i'm sorry - i don't really understand what constructions you're talking about here. could you give a couple of examples?

Unlike using spices for cooking, in medicinal usage they are taken in large quantities in order to treat particular maladies.(source:GMATPrep)

(A) Unlike using spices for cooking, in medicinal usage they are taken
(B) Unlike spices that are used in cooking, in using spices for medicine, they are taken
(C)Unlike cooking with spices, taking spices for medicinal use is done
(D) In cooking, small quantities of spices are used, whereas in medicinal usage spices are taken

hi, Ron! look (C), which is the contruction i was talking about----if you just said that,yes, it is a illegal contruction, next time i will kill the same option as soon as possible.

[muralik.abm]

In choice "e" why this sentence "the usage of spices is in small quantities" does not mean that the usage of spices are always is in small quantities when cooking?

well, that's exactly the problem.

you need to strip down the sentence, to see exactly what single word is being described as 'in small quantities'. if you eliminate the prepositional phrase 'of spices', which just serves as an adjective in this sentence, you have the following:
[i]the usage ... is in small quantities'
that's wrong, because it's not the usage that's in small quantities; it's the spices themselves. (the sentence allows the possibility that the spices are used all the time - as long as the quantities are small.)

you need to have a sentence that correctly indicates that the spices are what's 'in small quantities'.

Ron,

Please correct me if i am wrong.

the option "E" is incorrect as it is gramatically wrong.

in cooking, ... (1)
the usage of spices is in small quantities ... (2)
whereas (means but/however)
in medicinal usage ... (3)
they (spices) are taken ... (4)

(1) is parallel to (3)
but
(2), with the subject "the usage of spices", is NOT logically parallel to (4) that is with the subject "Spices"

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

Please correct me if i am wrong.

the option "E" is incorrect as it is gramatically wrong.

in cooking, ... (1)
the usage of spices is in small quantities ... (2)
whereas (means but/however)
in medicinal usage ... (3)
they (spices) are taken ... (4)

(1) is parallel to (3)
but
(2), with the subject "the usage of spices", is NOT logically parallel to (4) that is with the subject "Spices"

that's a good analysis. nicely done.

[martelena]

I have a question about choice C.

Not quite. The comparison is cooking vs. taking: cooking spices vs. taking spices (for medicinal use). That's okay. The issue is that we can't say "taking spices is done in large quantities..."

So, as I understand the comparison in C is actually ok.
But I don’t understand why "taking spices is done in large quantities..." is wrong.
"Taking" is singular, so it should have "is", right?
Maybe, it’s just awkward phrasing or what?

Can anyone, please, elaborate on this? Also, are there any other issues with C?
Thanks

[RonPurewal]

I have a question about choice C.

Not quite. The comparison is cooking vs. taking: cooking spices vs. taking spices (for medicinal use). That's okay. The issue is that we can't say "taking spices is done in large quantities..."

So, as I understand the comparison in C is actually ok.
But I don’t understand why "taking spices is done in large quantities..." is wrong.
"Taking" is singular, so it should have "is", right?
Maybe, it’s just awkward phrasing or what?

Can anyone, please, elaborate on this? Also, are there any other issues with C?
Thanks

the usage is incorrect -- in fact, i don't think you can say "verbING is done..." for any verb.
even if you don't know this, though, this particular construction should still look very much inferior next to its alternative, "spices are taken..."

the other problem with that answer choice is that "large quantities" doesn't seem to apply to the spices themselves, because the spices are no longer the subject of that construction. (in the correct answer -- "spices are taken in large quantities" -- it's much more clear that the large quantities are of the spices themselves.)

[jp.jprasanna]

Can someone tell me what's wrong with A?

(A) Unlike using spices for cooking, in medicinal usage they are taken

Unlike followed bu Noun (Gerund), moreover the comparison also seems right... "spices used for cooking " with "spices used for medicinal usage"

Cheers
JP

[RonPurewal]

Can someone tell me what's wrong with A?

(A) Unlike using spices for cooking, in medicinal usage they are taken

Unlike followed bu Noun (Gerund), moreover the comparison also seems right... "spices used for cooking " with "spices used for medicinal usage"

Cheers
JP

"unlike x" sets up a contrast with the subject of the following clause. so, in this sentence, you have a contrast between using... (which follows "unlike") and they (from the following clause), which doesn't make sense.

in addition, in every official sentence i've ever seen with "unlike", the following subject comes immediately at the beginning of the clause, directly after the comma. so you've got another problem here, because there's a prepositional phrase in the way.

[yuanhongzhi0830]

Hello there, I am a little bit confused by Choice B, which seems correct to me.
Choice B: Unlike spices( that are used in cooking), (in using spices for medicine), (they) are taken
After eliminating the modifying part, it looks like
Unlike spices #1, spice#2 are taken.....

Please tell me how it is wrong, thanks a lot!

[RonPurewal]

Hello there, I am a little bit confused by Choice B, which seems correct to me.
Choice B: Unlike spices( that are used in cooking), (in using spices for medicine), (they) are taken

so there are actually 4 issues here.

1/
the comparison doesn't work.
the left-hand part of the comparison is "spices that are used in cooking"; the right-hand part is "they" = "spices" in general.
for this comparison to work, you'd have to have "spices that are used in medicine" in there somewhere. you don't.

2/
in GMAC's correct sentences of the form Unlike xxxx ...., yyyyy..., the "yyyy" comes DIRECTLY after the "Unlike xxxxx" part.
check out the boldface part above -- this doesn't happen. instead, the modifier "in using spices ..." is interposed between those two parts.
bad.

3/
"in using spices..." would have to be followed by a noun representing the person (or pharmaceutical company, or whatever) who uses the spices.
that doesn't happen here.

4/
"using spices for medicine" isn't a logical wording; it wrongly suggests that the spices are used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

[HanzZ]

Ron,

Please correct me if i am wrong.

the option "E" is incorrect as it is gramatically wrong.

in cooking, ... (1)
the usage of spices is in small quantities ... (2)
whereas (means but/however)
in medicinal usage ... (3)
they (spices) are taken ... (4)

(1) is parallel to (3)
but
(2), with the subject "the usage of spices", is NOT logically parallel to (4) that is with the subject "Spices"

that's a good analysis. nicely done.

Hello Ron,

If the above logic is correct then in D:

'In cooking' is parallel to 'in medical usage'
However,
'small quantities' is not parallel to 'spices are taken'

Please....

Thanks!

[tim]

Please what? I'm confused because you didn't finish your.... :)

As for parallelism, as long as the prepositional phrases are parallel that's good enough. You don't have to dig any deeper.

[samwong]

d) In cooking, small quantities of spices are used, whereas in medicinal usage spices are taken

The comma after "in cooking" completely threw me off. I was comparing "in cooking" with "in medicinal usage spices are taken..." and I treated "small quantities of spices are used" as nonessential modifier. Would the answer choice D still be correct if the comma after "in cooking" was removed?

Also, when we see "Unlike X, Y", X and Y need to be logically and structurally parallel. Does "whereas" work in the same way as "unlike"?

Did I highlight the comparison correctly? Thank you.

[RonPurewal]

d) In cooking, small quantities of spices are used, whereas in medicinal usage spices are taken

The comma after "in cooking" completely threw me off. I was comparing "in cooking" with "in medicinal usage spices are taken..." and I treated "small quantities of spices are used" as nonessential modifier. Would the answer choice D still be correct if the comma after "in cooking" was removed?

The gmat DOES NOT test punctuation.

There is this whole idea that modifiers behind commas don't narrow anything down, while modifiers lacking such commas do narrow things down -- but that has never been explicitly tested, not a single once, in the thousands of official problems that GMAC has released.
(I'd bet good money that it won't ever be tested, either. To test that would be grossly unfair to speakers of languages like Finnish and Russian -- in which modifiers are punctuated in essentially the opposite way -- while creating an unfair advantage for speakers of Western European languages that punctuate sentences in largely the same way as English.)

That whole idea is irrelevant here in the first place, though, because these modifiers don't follow the stuff they're modifying.
When the modifier comes before the clause, there's no significance to the comma, other than issues of style and readability (which aren't tested here).
I.e., "In 1993, Ron graduated from high school" and "In 1993 Ron graduated from high school" are absolutely identical in every possible respect. The choice would boil down to (a) the particular author's style and (b) how well each version would mix with the stuff surrounding it. Nothing to be concerned about, unless you plan to become a professional writer or editor.