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Bronson!

by RumpelThickSkin » Fri Jun 11, 2010 12:23 am
Took this off another dude's post ( 3 questions from SC sets) - that thread seems to have died out but want your comments on this.

Bronson Alcott believed it immoral to work for wages or to own property, leaving it to his wife and daughters to support the family.

A) it immoral to work for wages or to own property, leaving it to his wife and daughters to support
(B) that working for wages or owning property was immoral and left to his wife and daughters the supporting of
(C) that working for wages or to own property was immoral and left to his wife and daughters the supporting of
(D) it to be immoral to work for wages and owning property, and he left it to his wife and daughters to be the supports of
(E) there was immorality in working for wages or owning property, and he left it to his wife and daughters to support

OA : later. Let's discuss!
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by jube » Fri Jun 11, 2010 12:49 am
wrong:
C - "working for" & "to own" are not parallel
D - "to work for" and "owning" are not parallel
E - there's a subtle change in the meaning of the sentence I think

contenders:
A - need to check whether the "It"s qualify for placeholder its
B - the 2nd part of the sentence sounds wordy (and left to his....)

with A, I'm pretty sure the first "it" can be a placeholder it but I think the 2nd one is not right. :-\

I'm not sure... could Ron or Stacey or one of the other instructors help out here?
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by hardik.jadeja » Fri Jun 11, 2010 12:57 am
When I first tried to solve this, something looked wrong in every option.

A) 'it' in option A looked ambiguous to me
B) "supporting" is unidiomatic. "to support" is the correct usage.
C) Parallelism. "working" is not parallel to "to own"
D) Parallelism. "to work" is not parallel to "owning"
E) grammatically fine, but "there was immorality in X" is unnecessarily wordy.

One of the possible answer is A. Although I am not fully convinced but here's the explanation(from some other forum) why A is correct.

First "it" refers to "to work or to own". Second "it" refers to "to support". Note that, all three of them are nouns(verb derivatives that act as nouns).
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by martin.jonson007 » Fri Jun 11, 2010 6:35 am
IMO B

Technical issue in A...
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by RumpelThickSkin » Fri Jun 11, 2010 10:45 am
OA : A agree with Hardik on this one
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by loveusonu » Fri Jun 11, 2010 2:08 pm
Both A and B have issues over here.

A) it immoral to work for wages or to own property, leaving it to his wife and daughters to support

It is not a peripheral one over here, hence should have some referent.

(B) that working for wages or owning property was immoral and left to his wife and daughters the supporting of

"the supporting of his family" --> too awkward.

But as explained by Ron pronoun rule is not absolute elimination for GMAC as A explains the intented meaning of the sentence, So should have gone with A.
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by brijesh » Fri Jun 11, 2010 9:48 pm
RumpelThickSkin wrote:Took this off another dude's post ( 3 questions from SC sets) - that thread seems to have died out but want your comments on this.

Bronson Alcott believed it immoral to work for wages or to own property, leaving it to his wife and daughters to support the family.

A) it immoral to work for wages or to own property, leaving it to his wife and daughters to support
(B) that working for wages or owning property was immoral and left to his wife and daughters the supporting of
(C) that working for wages or to own property was immoral and left to his wife and daughters the supporting of
(D) it to be immoral to work for wages and owning property, and he left it to his wife and daughters to be the supports of
(E) there was immorality in working for wages or owning property, and he left it to his wife and daughters to support

OA : later. Let's discuss!
I think E is the right ans.
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by Mylogin » Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:59 am
Answer should be A

See the below link for the usage of it, I think it is not different here

https://www.beatthegmat.com/og-12-3-t55452.html
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by loveusonu » Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:51 am
Mylogin wrote:Answer should be A

See the below link for the usage of it, I think it is not different here

https://www.beatthegmat.com/og-12-3-t55452.html
The 'it' in your post and in this post is different.
The 'it' stacey refers is also called peripheral 'it'

For eg: it is raining heavily -->Correct : as it doesn't require any referent over here.

In our scenario "leaving it...", 'it' definitely should point to something but
I can only think of this post, which says pronoun ambiguity not an absolute rule so long as the sentence conveys the intended meaning correctly : https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/sc- ... t6532.html
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by ansumania » Wed Jun 16, 2010 7:37 am
I am confused between A and B. Though B doesnot sound right , it is hard to digest A too.

The explanation for A says , as commented by one of our frnds, 'it' is used as placeholder in both the cases, but I have not seen

placeholder use of 'it' in such manner previously (though I read about the placeholder usage before). Pl. advise.
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by kvcpk » Wed Jun 16, 2010 7:48 am
IMO A
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:01 am
Received a PM from ansumania asking me to respond.

I can't discuss this problem in detail because I'm not sure the author has not been cited. I'll discuss general principles. RumpelThickSkin, can you confirm the source? Are you talking about 1000SC? (Note: I don't like that source in general. There are some very good Qs in there, but also some bad ones - and they're all mixed together.)

The pronoun "it" does not always have to have a discrete antecedent. Think about the sentence "It's raining outside." What does "it" mean in that sentence? The sky is raining? The air is raining? Mother Nature is raining? There isn't really a noun you can put there in place of "it." Rather, the "it" is referring to a "state of being" - there is rain falling from the sky.

I believe it foolish to take the GMAT without studying.

The "it" in this case again doesn't represent a discrete noun. Try it this way: It is foolish to take the GMAT without studying. The "it" in this sentence is similar to the "it" in "it is raining." I'm referring to a general state of being, not a thing that I can replace with another noun.

Next, here are two ways to set up a sentence (ways that just might resemble A and B, above :)):

Yesterday, I visited the store, browsing for GMAT books.
Yesterday, I visited the store and browsed for GMAT books.

In the first sentence, the stuff after the comma is a consequence of or follow-on from the main clause before the comma.
In the second sentence, I undertook two actions that might be entirely separate: I visited a store (maybe it was a shoe store?) and I also browsed for GMAT books (maybe on Amazon?).

That is, the set-up of the first sentence very clearly ties all of the actions together. The setup of the second sentence ties each action to the subject ("I"), but it doesn't necessarily tell me whether the two actions are tied together.
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by ansumania » Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:15 am
Thanks Stacey, It clarified some other doubt which I had not asked but didn't know.......
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by jube » Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:59 am
Stacey Koprince wrote:Received a PM from ansumania asking me to respond.

I can't discuss this problem in detail because I'm not sure the author has not been cited. I'll discuss general principles. RumpelThickSkin, can you confirm the source? Are you talking about 1000SC? (Note: I don't like that source in general. There are some very good Qs in there, but also some bad ones - and they're all mixed together.)

The pronoun "it" does not always have to have a discrete antecedent. Think about the sentence "It's raining outside." What does "it" mean in that sentence? The sky is raining? The air is raining? Mother Nature is raining? There isn't really a noun you can put there in place of "it." Rather, the "it" is referring to a "state of being" - there is rain falling from the sky.

I believe it foolish to take the GMAT without studying.

The "it" in this case again doesn't represent a discrete noun. Try it this way: It is foolish to take the GMAT without studying. The "it" in this sentence is similar to the "it" in "it is raining." I'm referring to a general state of being, not a thing that I can replace with another noun.

Next, here are two ways to set up a sentence (ways that just might resemble A and B, above :)):

Yesterday, I visited the store, browsing for GMAT books.
Yesterday, I visited the store and browsed for GMAT books.

In the first sentence, the stuff after the comma is a consequence of or follow-on from the main clause before the comma.
In the second sentence, I undertook two actions that might be entirely separate: I visited a store (maybe it was a shoe store?) and I also browsed for GMAT books (maybe on Amazon?).

That is, the set-up of the first sentence very clearly ties all of the actions together. The setup of the second sentence ties each action to the subject ("I"), but it doesn't necessarily tell me whether the two actions are tied together.
loved your explanation Stacy! thanks!
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by loveusonu » Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:02 am
Stacey Koprince wrote:Received a PM from ansumania asking me to respond.

I can't discuss this problem in detail because I'm not sure the author has not been cited. I'll discuss general principles. RumpelThickSkin, can you confirm the source? Are you talking about 1000SC? (Note: I don't like that source in general. There are some very good Qs in there, but also some bad ones - and they're all mixed together.)

The pronoun "it" does not always have to have a discrete antecedent. Think about the sentence "It's raining outside." What does "it" mean in that sentence? The sky is raining? The air is raining? Mother Nature is raining? There isn't really a noun you can put there in place of "it." Rather, the "it" is referring to a "state of being" - there is rain falling from the sky.

I believe it foolish to take the GMAT without studying.

The "it" in this case again doesn't represent a discrete noun. Try it this way: It is foolish to take the GMAT without studying. The "it" in this sentence is similar to the "it" in "it is raining." I'm referring to a general state of being, not a thing that I can replace with another noun.

Next, here are two ways to set up a sentence (ways that just might resemble A and B, above :)):

Yesterday, I visited the store, browsing for GMAT books.
Yesterday, I visited the store and browsed for GMAT books.

In the first sentence, the stuff after the comma is a consequence of or follow-on from the main clause before the comma.
In the second sentence, I undertook two actions that might be entirely separate: I visited a store (maybe it was a shoe store?) and I also browsed for GMAT books (maybe on Amazon?).

That is, the set-up of the first sentence very clearly ties all of the actions together. The setup of the second sentence ties each action to the subject ("I"), but it doesn't necessarily tell me whether the two actions are tied together.
Hi Stacey,

Thanks for the wonderful explanation as usual.
I read you earlier posts too and the doubt regarding first 'it' is very much clear from your current and earlier explanations on this subject matter.

The problem here was with second 'it', which we would you to clarify further.
I am not sure when the original source will be posted here, but if possible could you take any similar sentence and clarify the second 'it' confusion?

Thanks in advance.
Sonu
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