Swiss psychologists

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Swiss psychologists

by GmatKiss » Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:36 pm

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In a review of 2,000 studies of human behavior that date back to the 1940s,two Swiss psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size, none could be taken seriously.

A.psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size,
B.psychologists, declaring that most of the studies failed in not controlling for such variables like social class and family size,and
C.psychologists declared that since most of the studies, having failed to control for such variables as social class and family size,
D.psychologists declared that since most of the studies fail in controlling for such variables like social class and family size,
E. psychologists declared that since most of the studies had failed to control for variables such as social class and family size,

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by gmatblood » Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:47 pm

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imo: c

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by dhonu121 » Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:47 pm

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GmatKiss wrote:In a review of 2,000 studies of human behavior that date back to the 1940s,two Swiss psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size, none could be taken seriously.

A.psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size, Lacks a main working verb for the subject two swiss scientists.
B.psychologists, declaring that most of the studies failed in not controlling for such variables like social class and family size,and . Like is used where such as should have been used.
C.psychologists declared that since most of the studies, having failed to control for such variables as social class and family size, Have failed should have been correct rather than having failed.
D.psychologists declared that since most of the studies fail in controlling for such variables like social class and family size, Like versus such as
E. psychologists declared that since most of the studies had failed to control for variables such as social class and family size,Correct choice.
Whats the OA ?
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by ice_rush » Sun Apr 29, 2012 1:05 pm

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[spoiler](E)[/spoiler] for me.

choice A and B -- Declaring is wrong. We are talking about studies that took place in the past. We need "declared" instead of "declaring"

(C) having failed should be had failed..the studies 'had' already failed at that particular time.

(D) fail in controlling is incorrect and of course you have the like vs such as split here. Like is used to compare nouns. wrong use of like here.

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by sana.noor » Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:20 am

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it should be E
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by Lifetron » Sun Apr 28, 2013 7:35 pm

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A.psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size,
B.psychologists, declaring that most of the studies failed in not controlling for such variables like social class and family size,and
C.psychologists declared that since most of the studies, having failed to control for such variables as social class and family size,
D.psychologists declared that since most of the studies fail in controlling for such variables like social class and family size,
E. psychologists declared that since most of the studies had failed to control for variables such as social class and family size

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by davidfrank » Wed May 08, 2013 12:42 am

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I want to know what is wrong with the phrase "failed in not controlling for such
variables". Per OG explanation, it says the phrase failed in not controlling
for is awkward and does not mean the same thing failed to control for. Can someone please clarify.

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by snigdha1605 » Wed May 08, 2013 12:59 am

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IMO - E

I believe a better usage for "failed in not controlling for such variables" would be -
"failed to control such variables..." or "failed in controlling..."

The 'not' seems a bit awkward.

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by [email protected] » Fri Jun 28, 2013 12:46 am

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@ davidfrank,
The word "Failed" already emphasizes the activity has not been done, is there a need to specify the not again?
Even better, try rephrasing "Failed to control" as "did not control", the NOT is inherent in the word "Failed"....
I hope this helps in understanding the logic behind the "Wordy" or "awkward" stuff. :idea:

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by [email protected] » Fri Jun 28, 2013 12:48 am

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davidfrank wrote:I want to know what is wrong with the phrase "failed in not controlling for such
variables". Per OG explanation, it says the phrase failed in not controlling
for is awkward and does not mean the same thing failed to control for. Can someone please clarify.
@ davidfrank,
The word "Failed" already emphasizes the activity has not been done, is there a need to specify the not again?
Even better, try rephrasing "Failed to control" as "did not control", the NOT is inherent in the word "Failed"....
I hope this helps in understanding the logic behind the "Wordy" or "awkward" stuff.

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by davidfrank » Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:26 am

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Got it.........thanks for highlighting it.
[email protected] wrote:
davidfrank wrote:I want to know what is wrong with the phrase "failed in not controlling for such
variables". Per OG explanation, it says the phrase failed in not controlling
for is awkward and does not mean the same thing failed to control for. Can someone please clarify.
@ davidfrank,
The word "Failed" already emphasizes the activity has not been done, is there a need to specify the not again?
Even better, try rephrasing "Failed to control" as "did not control", the NOT is inherent in the word "Failed"....
I hope this helps in understanding the logic behind the "Wordy" or "awkward" stuff.

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by kpe12 » Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:54 am

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ice_rush wrote:[spoiler](E)[/spoiler] for me.

choice A and B -- Declaring is wrong. We are talking about studies that took place in the past. We need "declared" instead of "declaring"

(C) having failed should be had failed..the studies 'had' already failed at that particular time.

(D) fail in controlling is incorrect and of course you have the like vs such as split here. Like is used to compare nouns. wrong use of like here.
I am new to GMAT and verbal - i did not understood one thing. But ho you decided the 'That ' in phrase " studies of.... THAT ... " refers to studies and not review?

Could someone pls explain?

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by Sun Light » Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:03 am

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A and B has No verb.

C.'having failed ..." indicates intention. Here it becomes non sensical.

D. "Such variables like"

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by ErikaPrepScholar » Wed Mar 14, 2018 6:28 am

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One thing we can do to make this question easier is to eliminate all modifiers from each option. Modifiers should never be necessary to the grammar of the sentence, so we should be able to remove them and still have a grammatical sentence.

First we'll eliminate "In ... 1940s". Then, for all answer choices that include a comma followed by an -ing word, we'll eliminate the portion with the -ing word up until the next comma. A comma followed by an -ing word is a classic indicator of a modifier:

A. psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size,
B. psychologists, declaring that most of the studies failed in not controlling for such variables like social class and family size, and
C. psychologists declared that since most of the studies, having failed to control for such variables as social class and family size,

This leaves us with the following:
A. Two Swiss psychologists none could be taken seriously.
B. Two Swiss psychologists and none could be taken seriously.
C. Two Swiss psychologists declared that since most of the studies none could be taken seriously.
D. Two Swiss psychologists declared that since most of the studies fail in controlling for such variables like social class and family size, none could be taken seriously.
E. Two Swiss psychologists declared that since most of the studies had failed to control for variables such as social class and family size, none could be taken seriously.

We should see right away that A-C 1) are fragments and 2) completely lose the meaning of the sentence. We can eliminate all three. We should note here that we didn't have a tense problem - we had a sentence structure problem. Commas are very revealing if you know what to look for.

That leads us to D and E. The only differences are "the studies fail" vs. "the studies had failed", "in controlling for" vs. "to control for", and "such variables like" vs. "variables such as". We can eliminate D for all three:
1) The studies date back to 1940. In this sentence, the psychologists "declared". This means that the review of these studies occurred in the past. So the studies failed *before* the past tense review - we want the past perfect tense here. Even if we aren't totally comfortable with past perfect, we definitely don't want the present, since the review is already in the past.
2) This is idiomatic - you "fail to control", not "fail in controlling". Good rule of thumb: be skeptical of -ing words when they aren't necessary. If you aren't sure, try to find a more straightforward error (like the one above) first.
3) Also idiomatic - "such like" is never used, which "such as" is.

This leaves us with E as the correct answer.
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by [email protected] » Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:51 pm

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Hello Everyone!

Let's take a closer look at this question to find the correct answer! Before we dive in, here is the original question, with any major differences between each option highlighted in orange:

In a review of 2000 studies of human behavior that date back to the 1940's, two Swiss psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size, none could be taken seriously.

(A) psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size,
(B) psychologists, declaring that most of the studies failed in not controlling for such variables like social class and family size, and
(C) psychologists declared that since most of the studies, having failed to control for such variables as social class and family size,
(D) psychologists declared that since most of the studies fail in controlling for such variables like social class and family size,
(E) psychologists declared that since most of the studies had failed to control for variables such as social class and family size,

After a quick scan over the options, it's clear that two major issues need to be addressed:

1. declaring vs. declared
2. had failed / failed / having failed / fail


Let's start with #1 on our list: declaring vs. declared. No matter which one we choose, it will knock out 2-3 options quickly.

We know that we have a past tense verb (declared) and a present participle (declaring).

We can also see that the answers that use "declaring" also have a comma before them, creating a non-essential clause. That means whatever we put between commas is not important, and can be removed without changing the meaning or grammatical correctness of what's left over. Non-essential clauses are a popular problem with GMAT SC questions, so we'll check to make sure they're being used correctly while also checking for verb tense issues.

To make this a little easier to see, I've added the non-underlined portions of the sentence:

(A) In a review of 2000 studies of human behavior that date back to the 1940's, two Swiss psychologists, declaring that since most of the studies had failed to control for such variables as social class and family size, none could be taken seriously. --> WRONG

If we remove the non-essential clause that begins with "declaring," we see that the remainder of the sentence doesn't make sense because it's missing a verb (What did the psychologists do?). It also doesn't make sense to use the present participle here. The psychologists are not still declaring the studies are screwed up - it all happened in the past. Therefore, this cannot be the correct option.

(B) In a review of 2000 studies of human behavior that date back to the 1940's, two Swiss psychologists, declaring that most of the studies failed in not controlling for such variables like social class and family size, and none could be taken seriously. --> WRONG

Again, if we remove the non-essential clause that begins with "declaring," we see that the remainder of the sentence doesn't make sense because it's missing a verb (What did the psychologists do?). It also doesn't make sense to use the present participle here. The psychologists are not still declaring the studies are screwed up - it all happened in the past. Therefore, this cannot be the correct option.

(C) In a review of 2000 studies of human behavior that date back to the 1940's, two Swiss psychologists declared that since most of the studies, having failed to control for such variables as social class and family size, none could be taken seriously. --> WRONG

Okay, so while this sentence uses the correct past tense verb tense "declared," there is still a problem with non-essential clauses. If we cross out the phrase, "having failed to control for such variables as social class and family size," what we're left with doesn't make sense. Therefore this also cannot be a correct option.

(D) In a review of 2000 studies of human behavior that date back to the 1940's, two Swiss psychologists declared that since most of the studies fail in controlling for such variables like social class and family size, none could be taken seriously. --> GOOD

There is no issue with how the verb "declared" is handled here, so let's save it for later!

(E) In a review of 2000 studies of human behavior that date back to the 1940's, two Swiss psychologists declared that since most of the studies had failed to control for variables such as social class and family size, none could be taken seriously. --> GOOD

There is no issue with how the verb "declared" is handled here, so let's save it for later!

You can eliminate options A, B, and C because they either use the wrong verb tense or the commas around the non-essential clauses are misplaced!

Now that we've narrowed it down to only 2 options, let's tackle #2 on our list: fail vs. had failed.

We know that the psychologists declared in the past that the studies shouldn't be taken seriously. We also know that before they made that declaration, the studies had failed in some way. This means we have two past tense events to deal with! We also know that we should use different verbs to indicate what order these events happened in:

Past Perfect --> Past Tense --> Present --> Future

Let's see how each answer stacks up!

(D) psychologists declared that since most of the studies fail in controlling for such variables like social class and family size,

This is INCORRECT because it uses the present tense "fail," which conveys the wrong meaning. These studies aren't still failing - they failed in the past, causing two Swiss psychologists to declare them bad studies.

(E) psychologists declared that since most of the studies had failed to control for variables such as social class and family size,

This is CORRECT! It uses the past perfect "had failed" to show that the studies had failed before the psychologists declared them bad studies.


There you have it - option E is the correct choice! It uses the correct verb forms, and doesn't have any problems with punctuation or non-essential clauses!


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