ethnicity

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by tanviet » Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:35 pm
C is correct

D is not a sentence because " process" need a verb.

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by mehravikas » Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:45 pm
Should be - D. In 'A' what does 'it' refers to?

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by ketkoag » Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:35 am
maihuna wrote:
pratikgandhi wrote:maihuna wrote:
Contrary to the scholarly wisdom of the 1950’s and early 1960’s that predicted the processes of modernization and rationalization would gradually undermine it, ethnicity is a worldwide phenomenon of increasing importance.

(A) would gradually undermine it (It can refer to modernization, rationalization and ethnicity)
(B) to be a gradual undermining of it(Same as above)
(C) would be a gradual undermining of ethnicity (Akward.. would be a ...)
(D) to gradually undermine ethnicity CORRECT
(E) gradually undermining it(Same as above)

IMO D
oa is a

D is incorrect from following perspective: Predicted that processes( of modernization and rationalization) to gradually undermine ethnicity:

processes will processes would but never ever processes to?
ok, i think that u've mistyped the question in the original post.. check it one more time, u've never typed "that" after predicted.. coz in ur explanation for D above, u've mentioned "predicted that" .. and if there is a "that" in the original question that Answer should be A.. So, due to typo error people are not able to get the correct answer.. please take care of it.. It happens sometimes, no issues :)

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by tanviet » Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:57 am
A is correct. "it" in A can refer forward to "ethnicity"

a pronoun can refer backward (to previous noun) and forward (to latter noun"

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Re: ethnicity

by perfectstranger » Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:29 pm
maihuna wrote:Contrary to the scholarly wisdom of the 1950’s and early 1960’s that predicted the processes of modernization and rationalization would gradually undermine it, ethnicity is a worldwide phenomenon of increasing importance.

(A) would gradually undermine it
(B) to be a gradual undermining of it
(C) would be a gradual undermining of ethnicity
(D) to gradually undermine ethnicity
(E) gradually undermining it
it has no clear referent in the grammer notes of the spidey's or whoever I've read that ......ethnicity, ethnicity is ........... construction is right. I vote for C since a wisdom is explained here
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by arjunn7 » Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:40 pm
It shud be D..
You always have "predicted..... will", not "predicted .... would"
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by lunarpower » Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:53 am
the best of the answer choices in this question is (a). it's not very well written; its clarity would be GREATLY helped by the inclusion of the word "that" after predicted, as stated by a couple of posters already.
however, there have been occasional official problems in which "that" has been omitted. (i don't remember the actual questions, but think about, say, "he said he was going to come" vs. "he said he was going to come" - both are fine.)

(d) is absolutely incorrect, because "predict X to do Y" is unidiomatic.

(e) is also incorrect, because it has the wrong meaning.
here's the difference:
J predicted that the processes would undermine X --> just what it says
J predicted the processes undermining X --> there are some processes that undermine X; J predicted these processes before they were actually known/discovered.

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in any case, the writing here is pretty sloppy. what is the source of the question?
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by goelmohit2002 » Sun Jul 26, 2009 6:19 am
lunarpower wrote:the best of the answer choices in this question is (a). it's not very well written; its clarity would be GREATLY helped by the inclusion of the word "that" after predicted, as stated by a couple of posters already.
however, there have been occasional official problems in which "that" has been omitted. (i don't remember the actual questions, but think about, say, "he said he was going to come" vs. "he said he was going to come" - both are fine.)
Hi Ron,

But Manhattan 4th edition(page#88) says that there are instances when we can drop "that" from the sentence. For e.g.

Right: The movie "that" we watched last Friday was scary.
Right: The movie we watched last Friday was scary.

Can you please tell why the above concept cannot be applied in the sentence at hand ?

Thanks
Mohit

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by lunarpower » Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:22 am
goelmohit2002 wrote:Hi Ron,

But Manhattan 4th edition(page#88) says that there are instances when we can drop "that" from the sentence. For e.g.

Right: The movie "that" we watched last Friday was scary.
Right: The movie we watched last Friday was scary.

Can you please tell why the above concept cannot be applied in the sentence at hand ?

Thanks
Mohit
hi -

in the post you quoted, i said that we ARE allowed to drop this instance of "that".

the difference here, though, is that the length of the sentence makes it extremely unclear if "that" is omitted. notice that the example sentences you've posted above are extremely short; this is an essential part of the reason why you can eliminate "that" without loss of clarity.
in longer sentences, it tends to be more difficult to preserve clarity without including helper words like this "that".

here's another, related example. it doesn't use the word "that", but the underlying principle is the same.
* i want to eat a hamburger and drink a coke.
* i want to eat a hamburger and to drink a coke.
these sentences are both fine, but the shorter one is better because (a) it's more compact and (b) there is absolutely no loss of clarity.

* the rebels are attempting to unseat the current government regime, which has only been in power for six months and has already lost most of its popular support, and reform the country's banking system, which has been beset by corruption and incompetence.
* the rebels are attempting to unseat the current government regime, which has only been in power for six months and has already lost most of its popular support, and to reform the country's banking system, which has been beset by corruption and incompetence.
these sentences are also both technically ok, but the one including "to" is MUCH MUCH easier to read. the length of the sentence and the number of modifiers both conspire to make the first one unacceptably difficult to understand.

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rest assured, by the way, that this sort of inclusion/exclusion of "that" will NEVER be the sole criterion on which a problem is decided (unless one or the other actually produces an ambiguity or a grammatical error).
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by goelmohit2002 » Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:45 am
lunarpower wrote:rest assured, by the way, that this sort of inclusion/exclusion of "that" will NEVER be the sole criterion on which a problem is decided (unless one or the other actually produces an ambiguity or a grammatical error).
Thanks a lot Ron....

Can you please give one example of a sentence where the inclusion of "that" is absolutely necessary, without which GMAT will consider the same wrong.....

Till today I was of the opinion that we need "that" in these type of scenarios....always....and based on the same used to do as the primary reason to kick out the option as opposed to secondary one as suggested by you.

or in GMAT it is always optional to use that in these type of scenarios...and we should never kick out the option based on that only.

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by lunarpower » Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:46 pm
goelmohit2002 wrote:Can you please give one example of a sentence where the inclusion of "that" is absolutely necessary, without which GMAT will consider the same wrong.....

Till today I was of the opinion that we need "that" in these type of scenarios....always....and based on the same used to do as the primary reason to kick out the option as opposed to secondary one as suggested by you.

or in GMAT it is always optional to use that in these type of scenarios...and we should never kick out the option based on that only.
hmm

there's probably some way to construct a sentence that is ambiguous without "that" in this sort of position, but i can't think of one off the top of my head.

it's never going to be grammatically INCORRECT without "that", since there is no other way in which the construction (NOUN + predicted/thought/said/etc + NOUN + VERB) can be interpreted.

but there are plenty of contexts in which it's going to be awkward or unclear without "that" in this position.
as i said before, this is never, ever, going to be the ONLY criterion on which a problem turns, so you won't have to worry about it.

i'll also repeat, again, that this is one of the "awkward" ones - in a correct answer - and so this is definitely not an official problem. the gmat will NEVER make you choose an awkward but correct answer over a non-awkward but incorrect answer. if there is unacceptable awkwardness, it will only occur in choices that are also wrong for some other reason.
(of course, if you're a non-native speaker, you may not be able to recognize "unacceptable awkwardness" in a lot of cases, but that's another issue.)
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by lunarpower » Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:47 pm
@ goelmohit

so, if there's one major lesson or takeaway that you can get from this specific exchange, this is it: you should not eliminate a choice with that form simply because the "that" is missing.
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by goelmohit2002 » Fri Jul 31, 2009 9:00 pm
lunarpower wrote:@ goelmohit

so, if there's one major lesson or takeaway that you can get from this specific exchange, this is it: you should not eliminate a choice with that form simply because the "that" is missing.
Thanks Ron !

One small related query....as nowhere I found the same....

Does it the case always that

a) noun + that <modifying phrase>
b) verb + that <independent clause>

There is one question in OG that says that "that in E mistakenly introduces a new independent clause rather than a modifying phrase for powers." After looking at the below question, I checked the same in multiple OG questions....the same seems to be followed in OG...but can you please tell is there some rule such as above ?

If there indeed a rule like above, then is the same followed for all the relative pronouns like which/where etc or the same is applicable for "that" only ?

Question(OG-10, Q222) is as below:

By a vote of 9 to 0, the Supreme Court awarded the Central Intelligence Agency broad discretionary powers enabling it to withhold from the public the identities of its sources of intelligence information.
(A) enabling it to withhold from the public
(B) for it to withhold from the public
(C) for withholding disclosure to the public of
(D) that enable them to withhold from public disclosure
(E) that they can withhold public disclosure of

OA = A

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by goelmohit2002 » Fri Jul 31, 2009 9:16 pm
lunarpower wrote:(i don't remember the actual questions, but think about, say, "he said he was going to come" vs. "he said he was going to come" - both are fine.)
Hi Ron,

I think you meant to say the following two:

1. he said he was going to come
2. he said "that" he was going to come.

Please confirm if my understanding is not correct.

Just one small query for the above example:

There are two complete sentence in the above:

a) he said
b) he was going to come

But if we will not use any coordinating conjunction or do not use "that"...then doesn't the above sentence becomes "Run-on" ?

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by goelmohit2002 » Fri Jul 31, 2009 9:51 pm
lunarpower wrote:@ goelmohit

so, if there's one major lesson or takeaway that you can get from this specific exchange, this is it: you should not eliminate a choice with that form simply because the "that" is missing.
Awesome Ron !!! Thanks a lot...for clearing this misconception from my mind....