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Any issues with SC Aristotle?

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Any issues with SC Aristotle?

by jitsy » Mon Sep 16, 2013 11:43 am
Hi guys,

I referred to Aristotle for SC and ingrained all its rules, one of which suggests avoiding the 'ing' tense as much as possible, unless there is a definite continuing action.

After doing questions from elsewhere, such as the OG and the ones posted in the forum here, I see the 'ing' form of the word being used comparatively generously. Also, e.g. any option with 'having been' or 'having being' in Aristotle practice questions was almost always a strike out so I tend to do the same while practicing questions on this forum but have realised that the usage has been right on a few occasions.

Is any of you facing similar consistency issues and have any suggestions to offer?

Thanks.
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by Mike@Magoosh » Mon Sep 16, 2013 12:13 pm
jitsy wrote:Hi guys,

I referred to Aristotle for SC and ingrained all its rules, one of which suggests avoiding the 'ing' tense as much as possible, unless there is a definite continuing action.

After doing questions from elsewhere, such as the OG and the ones posted in the forum here, I see the 'ing' form of the word being used comparatively generously. Also, e.g. any option with 'having been' or 'having being' in Aristotle practice questions was almost always a strike out so I tend to do the same while practicing questions on this forum but have realised that the usage has been right on a few occasions.

Is any of you facing similar consistency issues and have any suggestions to offer?

Thanks.
Dear Jitsy,
I'm happy to help. :-)

First, I will point out a grammatical error in what you said: "Is any of you facing similar consistency issues?" Because the "any" is referring to the second-person ("you"), we always use "are" for the second person, "you are", regardless of whether the "you" is singular or plural.

Some constructions with the "-ing" form are problematic, especially the word "being", but there are many place in which "-ing" forms are perfectly fine and correct on the GMAT. It would get you in a lot of trouble on the GMAT SC to assume that an "-ing" form is always automatically wrong: that's far too simplistic and way over-generalized. See this blog for some acceptable forms.
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/the-ing-form-of-a-verb/
What you say, in a way, underscores the risk of relying on any one source as if it is gospel. Comparing what difference prep sources say can give your studying good balance. See this blog for some recommendations on the best sources:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/best-gmat- ... rces-2013/

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)
Magoosh GMAT Instructor
https://gmat.magoosh.com/
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