numbers of for goel mohit

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by maihuna » Tue Jun 30, 2009 8:36 am
It is very evident here man, any reports from a department will talk about a number, the number itself can be 500 or 5000...but the number reported by the department will be one, but the number of people to be killed by a virus in some coming time is definetly not a fixed number...

hope i am clear here...
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by hemanth28 » Tue Jun 30, 2009 10:27 am
"numbers of " is not incorrect by itself. "The numbers of" and "A numbers of" is wrong.

I Googled a bit and found below sentence in GMAC website.

"Each test center operates on its own schedule and can accommodate varying numbers of test takers throughout the day."

If a adjective is modifying the numbers ,then i guess the usage is acceptable.

"large numbers of"
"varying numbers of"

-Correct me if i am wrong.
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by goelmohit2002 » Tue Jun 30, 2009 11:03 am
hemanth28 wrote:"numbers of " is not incorrect by itself. "The numbers of" and "A numbers of" is wrong.

I Googled a bit and found below sentence in GMAC website.

"Each test center operates on its own schedule and can accommodate varying numbers of test takers throughout the day."

If a adjective is modifying the numbers ,then i guess the usage is acceptable.

"large numbers of"
"varying numbers of"

-Correct me if i am wrong.
Thanks Hemant. It does seem to be correct. But i just checked the OG-11...in it there are couple of places in say RC/CR where GMAT freely uses "numbers of"...

e.g. pessage for Q37 of OG-11, starts with....

"Although numbers of animals in a given region may fluctuate from year to year, the fluctuations are often temporary and, over long periods"

Can you please tell have u seen the rule exception that you mentioned "Adjective + Numbers of"....in SC section....

If not then probably we can make it a rule for SC section atleast :-)

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by gmattarget700 » Tue Jun 30, 2009 12:07 pm
I do not agree that "numbers of" is wrong....
D is the answer...

Moderators/experts,

Can you put this thread to rest by giving the Answer, with governing rule..?

I am new to this site but I feel moderator should pitch in when any thread has got more than X (say, 10) numbers of posts/replies as that should be taken as indicative of the fact that things are not clear....just a suggestion..

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Re: numbers of for goel mohit

by ketkoag » Tue Jun 30, 2009 1:02 pm
kanha81 wrote:
ketkoag wrote:
maihuna wrote:New Jersey’s is one of the five highest number of reported cases of Lyme disease in the United States.
(A) New Jersey’s is one of the five highest number of reported
(B) New Jersey’s is one of the five highest numbers in reporting
(C) New Jersey has a report of one of the five highest numbers of
(D) New Jersey has one of the five highest numbers of reported
(E) New Jersey reports one of the five highest number of
IMO D..
E cannot be correct coz "five highest numbers" is the correct statement.
Don't u think "five highest NUMBER" is incorrect? i think it is incorrect.......
Numbers of is almost always wrong on GMAT. Hence [D] is out of contention. Best suited IMO [spoiler][E][/spoiler]
here in this case, D maintains the meaning..
In 'of the' constructions check the word following that construction. Here the phrase 'one of the' tells us that NJ has one out of many(numbers- plural) so it is 'one of the PLURAL'

Hence we require 'numbers' .Eliminate A and E.
i think, here E distorts the meaning as well, coz it says that NJ reports, but it is not clear that NJ has one of the highest cases.

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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 06, 2009 10:19 am
Received a PM asking me to respond. First, see my post in this thread:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/numbers-of-i ... 39059.html

In that other thread, I said that you can say "the numbers of" in the rare circumstance that you are literally talking about multiple, different numbers. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. Construct a scenario to illustrate:

New Jersey has 10 reported cases
New York has 14 reported cases
Hawaii has 9 reported cases
Maine has 12 reported cases
Michigan has 8 reported cases.

There are five numbers: 8, 9, 10, 12, and 14. If I tell you these are the five highest (of all of the states), then New Jersey's number (10) is among the five highest numbers. Make sense?
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by maihuna » Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:18 pm
oa is D
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by mehravikas » Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:22 pm
"numbers of" is not incorrect on the GMAT. If you use numbers of in the following way, then it is incorrect:

a numbers of....., the numbers of.........

But let's say you have - Each test center has its own schedule of GMAT test dates and accommodates a varying numbers of students.

the above sentence is grammatically correct !!

The answer to the question posted by maihuna should be D.
kanha81 wrote:
ketkoag wrote:
maihuna wrote:New Jersey�s is one of the five highest number of reported cases of Lyme disease in the United States.
(A) New Jersey�s is one of the five highest number of reported
(B) New Jersey�s is one of the five highest numbers in reporting
(C) New Jersey has a report of one of the five highest numbers of
(D) New Jersey has one of the five highest numbers of reported
(E) New Jersey reports one of the five highest number of
IMO D..
E cannot be correct coz "five highest numbers" is the correct statement.
Don't u think "five highest NUMBER" is incorrect? i think it is incorrect.......
Numbers of is almost always wrong on GMAT. Hence [D] is out of contention. Best suited IMO [spoiler][E][/spoiler]

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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Jan 14, 2010 10:48 am
But let's say you have - Each test center has its own schedule of GMAT test dates and accommodates a varying numbers of students.
Not quite. It would be correct to say "accommodates varying numbers of students" but not "accommodates a varying numbers of students."
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by mehravikas » Thu Jan 14, 2010 12:00 pm
Thanks Stacey for pointing out the mistake. It was a typo :-)

"a numbers" is definitely incorrect but "numbers" can be used in GMAT sentences. Correct?
Stacey Koprince wrote:
But let's say you have - Each test center has its own schedule of GMAT test dates and accommodates a varying numbers of students.
Not quite. It would be correct to say "accommodates varying numbers of students" but not "accommodates a varying numbers of students."

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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Jan 14, 2010 12:12 pm
yes. :)
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by mmslf75 » Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:17 am
Stacey Koprince wrote:yes. :)
thanks stacey !!

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by er_priyankajolly » Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:37 am
Can anyone explain whats wrong with E option?

Had it been
New Jersey reports one of the five highest numbers of
Then would it be correct?

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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jul 05, 2010 12:13 pm
Because we're actually talking about a set of numbers here, we do want to say "numbers," not "number," yes. E also changed the meaning of the sentence, though. There are "reported cases" of Lyme disease - the cases that actually get reported to the authorities - and that number is presumably smaller than the actual number of cases, because some people don't go to the doctor or get misdiagnosed or whatever.

The original sentence talks about the "reported cases" and tells us that NJ is high on the list of states in terms of reported cases. Option E mentions only the "cases" - meaning the actual number of cases. Perhaps NJ just has a really good reporting mechanism, and other states have a lot more cases but they don't get reported properly or something... we don't know that NJ actually is in the top 5 in terms of actual total cases - only reported cases.
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