Sentence Correction

@atulmangal-

i dont see anything wrong with consider by- but i am not sure if its an idiom.

Eg: make a list of words to consider by writing them down alphabetically.

As far as "considered" is concerned- its a verb form and its simply in past tense. unless you are using considered as an adjective. eg- considered opinion.
i think you are good to use idiom forms with considered too.

If you find some additional information please share it with me too.

@Atul

1.) Never heard an idiom like consider by X. We need expert advice on this.

2.) Yes we can apply the same idiom for considered. If the same sentence is in past tense, then we can say Considered X to be Y.

One question Atul...m confused.

Should we use consider X to be Y or consider X as Y.

I remember a question from OG where consider X as Y is used as the correct idiom.

Open to opinions.

@force

Thanks for the post but don't u think, the rule for consider suggest that it should be followed by noun...consider by...here consider is followed by a preposition and if this is an incorrect idiom then at one glance u can pick Op B as answer as other choices are using considered by...can u go for some expert help?????

@ Champmag

Consider X as Y is not an idiom...the actual idiom is Consider X,Y and the OG used this same, i'm sure you made some mistake...now most of the times we use this idiom only but i come across some questions and read some explanations on Manhattan forum where experts suggest that

Consider X to be Y is also a correct idiom

Please note as these two idioms related to consider are very important.

Thanks

"consider" is often tested on the GMAT because it's one of the rare verbs that's generally not followed by a preposition.

For example, a correct sentence is:

Einstein is considered one of the great minds of the 20th Century.

However, many people are tempted to say:

Einstein is considered to be one of the great minds of the 20th Century.

or

Einstein is considered as one of the great minds of the 20th Century.

both of which are idiomatically incorrect.

However, as with almost every rule in English (which makes it such a "fun" language to learn), there are exceptions. For example:

Einstein is considered by many one of the greatest minds of the 20th Century.

Now, when you analyze this sentence, "by many" isn't really an exception to the consider rule, since the phrase is merely providing information about who is doing the considering. So, it's perfectly acceptable to follow "considered" with "by" if "by" is introducing that kind of information.

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:"consider" is often tested on the GMAT because it's one of the rare verbs that's generally not followed by a preposition.

For example, a correct sentence is:

Einstein is considered one of the great minds of the 20th Century.

However, many people are tempted to say:

Einstein is considered to be one of the great minds of the 20th Century.

or

Einstein is considered as one of the great minds of the 20th Century.

both of which are idiomatically incorrect.

However, as with almost every rule in English (which makes it such a "fun" language to learn), there are exceptions. For example:

Einstein is considered by many one of the greatest minds of the 20th Century.

Now, when you analyze this sentence, "by many" isn't really an exception to the consider rule, since the phrase is merely providing information about who is doing the considering. So, it's perfectly acceptable to follow "considered" with "by" if "by" is introducing that kind of information.

Thanks a lot for your post Stuart,

It clear my doubt.

Thanks a lot

Thanks for the PM invite to discuss, Atul - it looks like Stuart has this question pretty well under control (so thanks, Stuart!), but if I can add something it's this:

Note that the correct answer in this question actually does use "considered to be". Even though it's probably not a "perfect" idiom, the standard for obscure-idiomatic-correctness is a tough one. If you Google "considered to be" you end up with this link at #1: https://ethnicity.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/c.html It calls the "to be" in there "almost always useless"...but doesn't rule it out as flat-out wrong.

Similarly, in regard to the other thread we've been discussing today (https://www.beatthegmat.com/fusion-t81403.html), there the correct answer uses the idiom "rather than" in the correct answer and not "instead of" (fusion merges atoms rather than splitting them apart). But, again, if you Google "instead of rather than", the #1 link (a GMAT site, actually: https://gmat-grammar.blocked/2006/0 ... ad-of.html) says that the biggest difference is that "rather than" should accompany preference...and that's can't really be the case with an inanimate scientific process (can fusion really "prefer" something?).


My point - and hopefully I'm not entirely hijacking this thread - is that the GMAT must be an objective assessment of problem solving / logic / critical thinking abilities, and a lot of these idioms are far from objective. Things like subject-verb agreement, pronoun agreement, logical modifiers, logical meaning - these are much more 'it's right or it's wrong' with a definite reason. But a lot of the idioms I see people discussing on here don't have that purity of correctness - there's a preferred way to say something but the less-preferred way isn't always flat-out wrong. "Idiomatic" is a catchall grammatical phrase for "that's just the way it is", and especially now that the GMAT is a global test with examinees who have learned English the American way; the British way; the South African way; the Australian way; and all kinds of hybrid ways, idioms just don't tend to lend themselves to objective assessment...as you can see in these two threads today in which the lesser-preferred idiom happened to be correct.

So if I can try to add some value here, my strong recommendation to everyone here is to focus on the decision points that have a reason behind them: logical agreement, numerical agreement, etc. Those thought processes are replicable, they're objective, they allow you to study fewer "things" and therefore improve or perfect them more thoroughly. And, ultimately, they're the only decision methods that really fit the GMAT's mission to to supply business schools with critical thinkers and problem solvers. If an idiomatic decision point requires you to Google that phrase and consult a dozen or so grammar pages to get to a point where you're 70% sure that one way is preferred over the other, it's a terrible test item...and the GMAT is a sophisticated and well-researched enough test that it's not going to have too many of those.

Well said Brian and well done Stuart!

I will admit that the I too feel the sentence correction threads lead to a level of obsession that may go too far. Like most of the experts on this site I do not ever really get official sentence correction questions wrong, but that is because official GMAT questions really are about the logic and big picture things that Brian talks about. However, some of the discussions on this board are about the tiniest details and I will admit that I do not always know these. Frankly, I often find them to be less than helpful for the GMAT.

Please follow Brian's advice. Can we all push to use the word "logic" in as many sentence correction questions as possible? As in, "that modifier does not logically modify the noun it touches." or that "comparison is not logical."

One final word, the Veritas GMAT courses are 42 hours long (much longer than many other courses) if we had to teach the minute idioms I have seen discussed so often on these boards the course would need to 142 hours long!