OG SC questions doubt

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OG SC questions doubt

by Jatinder » Sat Oct 18, 2008 1:23 am
1. Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, a technique called proton-induced x-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it, is finding uses in medicine, archaeology, and criminology.
(A) Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, a technique called proton-induced x-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it,
(B) Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, having the ability to analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it, a technique called proton induced x-ray emission
(C) A technique originally developed for detecting air pollutants, called proton-induced x-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it,
(D) A technique originally developed for detecting air pollutants, called proton-induced x-ray emission, which has the ability to analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance quickly and without destroying it,
(E) A technique that was originally developed for detecting air pollutants and has the ability to analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance quickly and without destroying the substance, called proton-induced x-ray emission,

Q1: How many refferant for "it" are there ?:

Q2: Is "which" referring to the "technique" or "emission" ?

2. Students in the metropolitan school district lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming ever more dependent on information-based industries.
(A) lack math skills to such a large degree as to make it difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming
(B) lack math skills to a large enough degree that they will be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy that becomes
(C) lack of math skills is so large as to be difficult to absorb them into a city’s economy that becomes
(D) are lacking so much in math skills as to be difficult to absorb into a city’s economy becoming
(E) are so lacking in math skills that it will be difficult to absorb them into a city economy becoming
Last edited by Jatinder on Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by raunekk » Sat Oct 18, 2008 2:01 am
imo: A
A

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by 4meonly » Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:07 am
A for 1st
E for 2nd

1. Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, a technique called proton-induced x-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it, is finding uses in medicine, archaeology, and criminology.
(A) Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, a technique called proton-induced x-ray emission, which can quickly analyze the chemical elements in almost any substance without destroying it,

Q1: How many refferant for "it" are there ?:
it should refer to substance.
It feels like refers to technique, but "technique" is too far from "it".
it is very close to substance.
I think this Q tests the construction of the sentence - modifying phrase "called proton-induced x-ray emission" should be closer to the word it modifies - technique. A is good on this. But still I dont like IT.
Others 4me have modifying errors, usage wordy consruction of having/has the ability to.
I really don't like A but it is more correct than others.


Q2: Is "which" referring to the "technique" or "emission" ?
I think which is not good here, because A almost avoids it

By the way, OAs, please

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by Jatinder » Sun Oct 19, 2008 1:19 am
OA's are A and E

I resolved my doubt of which from one of the Stacey's post:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/use-of-which ... hlight=ron purewal

Stacey@/Stuart/Ron: Can you please reslove my doubt for "it" also?
Although A is the right answer for the 1st question; i eliminated that because i found more than 1 refferant for "it"

2nd question: Similar problem in the 2nd question for the right answer E:
i eliminated E because i didn't find any refferant of "it" in E

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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:10 am
In the first one, let's strip out the structure here:

Originally developed for (doing X), a technique (called Y), (which can Z), is (etc)

The "it" is contained within Z, above, which is part of a noun modifier (indicated by the word "which").

So let's look at that bit more closely:
"emission, which can analyze the elements in a substance without destroying it" (note: I chopped some detail out)

"it" is singular. The modifier is describing something about the emission technique. The technique can analyze the elements in a substance without destroying it. Technique is singular, but the technique can't destroy itself - first, that doesn't make sense, and second, if the technique really were destroying itself, we'd need the word "itself" in the sentence, not "it."

The only other singular thing I've got is "substance" - so that must be it. (No pun intended. :))

For the second one, one of the things that we have to know is that "it" sometimes doesn't have any referents - and that's okay. Think about "it is raining outside." What does "it" refer to? Obviously nothing in that sentence - but, in the real world, what would if refer to? Mother nature? The sky? None of those make sense. "It" isn't really referring to anything real. What about: It is worthwhile to study. What could "it" refer to there?

So there are actually cases in which "it" is used as a subject but doesn't refer to anything real - it's just a placeholder because there's no real "actor" in the sentece (the "actor" is the noun performing the verb). So if you see "it" used as a subject in a sentence, consider that it might be a "dummy subject" - and check to see. Is anyone or anything actually performing this verb? (In which case "it" should refer properly to that thing) Or is there no real "actor" who would perform this verb? (In which case "it" is a dummy placeholder and has no referent)

In this case, we've got "it will be difficult to" do something. Is there someone or something that you could actually insert into that subject? The city will be difficult to absorb them? The district will be difficult to absorb them? No - we're not talking about a real noun here. "It" is just a dummy placeholder for the idea that "it will be difficult" to do something.
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Re:

by preetha_85 » Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:59 pm
Hi

Could somebody explain why C is wrong

Thanks in advance
Preetha

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Re:

by stop@800 » Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:00 am
preetha_85 wrote:Hi

Could somebody explain why C is wrong

Thanks in advance
Preetha
for detecting air pollutants, called proton-induced x-ray emission, which
Which refers to ??

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Second question

by iamcste » Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:01 am
Hi all

Just one additonal input-
If you observe, for second question, option E uses correct idiom

so ....that...

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by Jatinder » Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:41 pm
Stacey Koprince wrote:In the first one, let's strip out the structure here:

Originally developed for (doing X), a technique (called Y), (which can Z), is (etc)

The "it" is contained within Z, above, which is part of a noun modifier (indicated by the word "which").

So let's look at that bit more closely:
"emission, which can analyze the elements in a substance without destroying it" (note: I chopped some detail out)

"it" is singular. The modifier is describing something about the emission technique. The technique can analyze the elements in a substance without destroying it. Technique is singular, but the technique can't destroy itself - first, that doesn't make sense, and second, if the technique really were destroying itself, we'd need the word "itself" in the sentence, not "it."

The only other singular thing I've got is "substance" - so that must be it. (No pun intended. :))

For the second one, one of the things that we have to know is that "it" sometimes doesn't have any referents - and that's okay. Think about "it is raining outside." What does "it" refer to? Obviously nothing in that sentence - but, in the real world, what would if refer to? Mother nature? The sky? None of those make sense. "It" isn't really referring to anything real. What about: It is worthwhile to study. What could "it" refer to there?

So there are actually cases in which "it" is used as a subject but doesn't refer to anything real - it's just a placeholder because there's no real "actor" in the sentece (the "actor" is the noun performing the verb). So if you see "it" used as a subject in a sentence, consider that it might be a "dummy subject" - and check to see. Is anyone or anything actually performing this verb? (In which case "it" should refer properly to that thing) Or is there no real "actor" who would perform this verb? (In which case "it" is a dummy placeholder and has no referent)

In this case, we've got "it will be difficult to" do something. Is there someone or something that you could actually insert into that subject? The city will be difficult to absorb them? The district will be difficult to absorb them? No - we're not talking about a real noun here. "It" is just a dummy placeholder for the idea that "it will be difficult" to do something.
Thanks Stacey

So what i made out from this is that if you have 2 refferants, the one which makes sense is the correct choice.
But in the following example, their has 2 refferants and only the one of them makes sense, then why the use of their is ambiqous ?

A proposal has been made to trim the horns from rhinoceroses to discourage poachers; the question is whether tourists will continue to visit game parks and see rhinoceroses after their horns are trimmed.

A) whether tourists will continue to visit game parks and see rhinoceroses after their horns are
B) whether tourists will continue to visit game parks to see one once their horns are
C) whether tourists will continue to visit game parks to see rhinoceroses once the animals' horns have been
D) if tourists will continue to visit game parks and see rhinoceroses once the animals' horns are
E) if tourists will continue to visit game parks to see one after the animals' horns have been

Am i missing something ?

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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:45 pm
You have to check both logic (whether it makes sense) and structure (the expected grammatical referent based on the setup of the sentence). For example, if you have a plural noun as the subject of a sentence, and then a plural pronoun as the subject of a dependent clause, you would expect (from a structural perspective) the pronoun to refer to the plural subject. If it logically refers to some other plural word in the sentence, that's a problem.

That's kind of what you've got here - you have a possessive pronoun attached to the noun "horns" and that noun (horns) is functioning as a subject. Earlier in the sentence, you have "tourists" also functioning as a subject, so the structural expectation is for "their" to refer to "tourists." But logically, obviously, "their" should refer to rhinoceroses. So we've got a problem.
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