disdain of/disdain for

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confuse mind: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 462; Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:08 pmFollowed by: 4 members; Thanked: 10 times

by confuse mind » Fri May 27, 2011 11:28 am

For all his professed disdain of such activities, Auden was an inveterate literary gossip.
(A) For all his professed disdain of such activities
(B) Having always professed disdain for such activities
(C) All such activities were, he professed, disdained, and
(D) Professing that all such activities were disdained
(E) In spite of professions of disdaining all such activities

correct answer- 'a'
can someone pls explain me why not 'b'

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Fri May 27, 2011 11:28 am

Ashley@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 199; Joined: Tue May 17, 2011 6:06 amFollowed by: 121 members; Location: Cambridge, MA; Thanked: 192 times; GMAT Score:780

by Ashley@VeritasPrep » Fri May 27, 2011 12:28 pm

Hi there,

I think the key here is *not* the idiomatic distinction ("disdain of" vs. "disdain for"), but rather the logical flow of the sentence meaning-wise. If you say "for all his professed disdain," the "for all" means "in spite of," as in "For all her faults, I love her still." So that works out quite well logically, because then the sentence can mean that even though he claimed to disdain literary gossip, he actually engaged in it.

In contrast, if you were to say "Having always professed disdain...", you'd want the thing that followed to be something you'd EXPECT from someone who professed disdain, like "Having always professed disdain for such activities, Auden stayed entirely clear of any form of literary gossip." The "having always professed..." doesn't prepare us for the sentence to take a turn into an actuality that's opposed to what Auden pretends. If (B) were to say "Despite having always professed disdain for such activities," I think it'd be just as good an answer choice as (A).

Hope that helps!

Ashley Newman-Owens
GMAT Instructor
Veritas Prep

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cans: Legendary Member; Posts: 1309; Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2011 5:34 amFollowed by: 123 members; Location: India; Thanked: 310 times; GMAT Score:750

by cans » Fri May 27, 2011 4:54 pm

Ashley@VeritasPrep wrote: If (B) were to say "Despite having always professed disdain for such activities," I think it'd be just as good an answer choice as (A).

So what would you choose?
A or B ( if B is changed as mentioned in quote)

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Ashley@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 199; Joined: Tue May 17, 2011 6:06 amFollowed by: 121 members; Location: Cambridge, MA; Thanked: 192 times; GMAT Score:780

by Ashley@VeritasPrep » Fri May 27, 2011 5:41 pm

Haha, well, in that case, I would write to GMAC and complain that there were two correct answers to a problem on the GMAT and argue that both of these should be credited as correct! You can find BOTH "disdain of" and "disdain for" in (for instance) the New Yorker and the New York Times. "Disdain for" shows up far more frequently... but then in the Oxford English Dictionary, there is an example sentence that employs "disdain of" while there is no example sentence that employs "disdain for." So I think it'd be impossible to argue that either one of these constructions is wrong, and I don't think there's any other good deciding factor that separates (A) from (our proposed B).

But given how thorough GMAC is about making sure there *isn't* more than one correct answer to a question, I think that's a highly unlikely scenario!

Ashley Newman-Owens
GMAT Instructor
Veritas Prep

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