meaning or grammar

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meaning or grammar

by Ramneet Singh » Sat Oct 09, 2010 3:53 am
Ron can you help us ewith the following SC
O.G 10
Q.67 Congress is debating a bill requiring certain employers provide workers with unpaid leave so as to care forsick or newbom children.
(A) provide workers with unpaid leave so as to
(B) to provide workers with unpaid leave so as to
(C) provide workers with unpaid leave in order that they
(D) to provide workers with unpaid leave so that they can
(E) provide workers with unpaid leave and

D is the OA..
Hi ron , as u advised, i have opened a new thread.I wanted to ask 2 questions.
1)are we rejecting A because we have assumed that the employers cant provide workers with leave to show that they care for sick and newborn children ( or for workers' newborn children)
is the sentence A otherwise grammatically right
2)is the sentence E otherwise grammatically right ?
so in such cases where we cant find anything wrong with an answer choice except for the problem that it changes the meaning slightly,do we reject such options.



The questions could be the same ones asked by the rest of the community here.just wish to eliminate my confusion.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by lunarpower » Sun Oct 10, 2010 1:17 am
Ramneet Singh wrote:Ron can you help us ewith the following SC
O.G 10
Q.67 Congress is debating a bill requiring certain employers provide workers with unpaid leave so as to care forsick or newbom children.
(A) provide workers with unpaid leave so as to
(B) to provide workers with unpaid leave so as to
(C) provide workers with unpaid leave in order that they
(D) to provide workers with unpaid leave so that they can
(E) provide workers with unpaid leave and

D is the OA..
Hi ron , as u advised, i have opened a new thread.I wanted to ask 2 questions.
1)are we rejecting A because we have assumed that the employers cant provide workers with leave to show that they care for sick and newborn children ( or for workers' newborn children)
is the sentence A otherwise grammatically right
2)is the sentence E otherwise grammatically right ?
yeah, (a) and (e) are meaning issues.

(a)
if you say "VERB1 so as to VERB2", then the subject/agent of VERB1 must be the same as the subject/agent of VERB2.
so, if you have
provide workers with unpaid leave so as to care for...
then the SAME subject/agent (i.e., employers) must be doing both of these things.
that's wrong.

(e)
same type of thing
if you say "VERB1 and VERB2", then the subject/agent of VERB1 must be the same as the subject/agent of VERB2.
so, if you have
provide workers with unpaid leave and care for...
then the SAME subject/agent (i.e., employers) must be doing both of these things.
that's wrong.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by lunarpower » Sun Oct 10, 2010 1:18 am
so in such cases where we cant find anything wrong with an answer choice except for the problem that it changes the meaning slightly,do we reject such options.
heh ... that's not a "slight" change in meaning. that's a huge, massive change in meaning.
we're saying that the employers are taking care of the workers' children, rather than the workers taking care of their own children!

in any case, here's the deal:
* if ONLY ONE CHOICE IS GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT (and the other four are actually WRONG), then you don't have to worry about meaning.
but
* if MORE THAN ONE CHOICE IS GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT, then, among the grammatically correct choices:
- kick out any meanings that are absurd
- if the original meaning is absurd, then pick the reasonable meaning
- if the original meaning makes sense, then pick the choice that conforms most closely to the original meaning


here, (a) is grammatically correct, but it's absurd (it makes no sense for the employer to give workers time off so that the employer can take care of the workers' children .. which is what that choice says!)
so we pick the one that makes sense.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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