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GMAT PREP question Help needed

by Sapana » Sat Jan 12, 2013 4:40 pm
At an orientation meeting, the travelers were told that a visa, a landing card, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever would be needed by each of them.
A. a visa, a landing card, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever would be needed by each of them
B. they would need a visa, a landing visa, and evidence of their being inoculated against typhoid fever
C. they would need evidence of being inoculated against typhoid fever and a visa and landing card
D. they would each need a visa, a landing card, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever
E. they would need visas, landing cards, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever for each of them.

OA D

I think the answer is missing an article before evidence. Any body else feel the same?
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Jan 14, 2013 4:17 pm
This is a great example of the GMAT SC trend that "meaning matters". Hard questions tend to use misdirection like this - your mind wants to see all three items in that list in as parallel of form as possible, so you want to see that article. But there's really no article that fits:

...an evidence?
...a piece of evidence? (maybe, but then again "one piece" of evidence may not be enough, so "evidence" is really what's necessary)
...the evidence? (probably too specific since the definite article makes it seem as though there's a specific piece of evidence out there)

So with this particular sentence, an article doesn't really make sense before "evidence". What's more important than just this question is the theme - on questions much past the 75th-80th percentile or so the GMAT tends to use "misdirection". It gives you a structure you've come to know just by reflex, but uses a situation in which the reflex action isn't necessary or doesn't directly apply. This thread here (https://www.beatthegmat.com/need-expert-help-t88888.html) is another of my favorite examples of this. At a certain ability level most test-takers have proven that they've mastered the knee-jerk reaction (are the verb tenses the same? Are the items parallel? etc.) and the test then has to get creative to find situations in which that reflex action either isn't there or is actually wrong, and the rewards go to those who really consider the meaning and reason their way through it.
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by ceilidh.erickson » Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:27 am
SC questions on the GMAT almost never test whether articles are necessary, so you shouldn't worry about that. Maintaining the same article is not necessary for parallelism.*

Generally speaking, articles are used to convey meaning about the number of the noun in question.

"A" specifies one specific thing out of many: "Travelers... would each need a visa" implies that there are lots of visas out there in the world, but each traveler only needs one. A visa is one specific, tangible object.

"The" means the only one of something, or all of something: If we say "the evidence," it implies all the evidence. For example, "the jury considered the evidence against the accused" means that the jury considered every piece of evidence.

"Evidence" is not a specific object, but a term given to a range of objects that serve to provide proof. In this sentence, travelers don't need to provide "the evidence," because it doesn't need to be a comprehensive collection of evidence. We also can't say "an evidence", because it's not any specific object.

No article means "some" or an undefined amount: "Travelers [need] evidence of inoculation" just means "some evidence," so this construction is fine. The nouns are parallel, and we don't need to match the articles - that would change the meaning.

*The only time that articles are necessary to parallelism is when a present participle is being used as a noun (gerund). For example, in OG #119: "New theories propose that catastrophic impacts of asteroids and comets may have caused reversals in the Earth's magnetic field, the onset of ice ages, the splitting apart continents 80 million years ago, and great volcanic eruptions."
"The" was necessary to turn "splitting" into a noun.
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by sachindia » Fri Jan 18, 2013 7:34 pm
Hi Ceilidh and Brain,
I got the right answer which is D but I don't quite understand why A and E are wrong.
Please help.
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by sana.noor » Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:29 am
what is more precise? they would each need a visa or they would need visas for each of them Obviously the first one is more precise so E is wrong.

Now A is a passive statement "a visa, a landing card, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever would be needed by each of them" Who need what? They each need a visa, a landing card and evidence. GMAT somehow dont prefer passive sentences. It only prefer Passive when it is grammatically right and precise. However, D is the most precise among all the other options.
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by sachindia » Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:48 am
thanks sana

but we need to use active/passive as a tie breaker when the sentences are grammatically correct,

I feel the choices which I have mentioned have some grammatical error.
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by patanjali.purpose » Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:54 am
sachindia wrote:Hi Ceilidh and Brain,
I got the right answer which is D but I don't quite understand why A and E are wrong.
Please help.
A - is passive; we prefer ACTIVE if available

E. they would need visas, landing cards, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever for each of them.

VISAS, CARDS,..implies THEY would need VISAS/CARDS (may be more than ONE VISA). The presence of EACH before NEED in D makes brings this clarity that ONE TRAVELER WOULD need only ONE.

FOR EACH OF THEM seems to modify last part of element (evidence...fever). In such a case EVIDENCE should have been EVIDENCES.
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by sana.noor » Sat Jan 19, 2013 9:15 am
Sachindia! According to statement A: "the travelers were told that a visa, a landing card, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever would be needed by each of them" The travelers were told that .........would be needed? who need? what them is refering to? is it really travelers who need or someone else? its ambigous. But D clears the meaning. Travelers were told that they (travelers) would each need bla bla bla.
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by ceilidh.erickson » Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:10 pm
patanjali.purpose wrote:
sachindia wrote:Hi Ceilidh and Brain,
I got the right answer which is D but I don't quite understand why A and E are wrong.
Please help.
A - is passive; we prefer ACTIVE if available

E. they would need visas, landing cards, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever for each of them.

VISAS, CARDS,..implies THEY would need VISAS/CARDS (may be more than ONE VISA). The presence of EACH before NEED in D makes brings this clarity that ONE TRAVELER WOULD need only ONE.

FOR EACH OF THEM seems to modify last part of element (evidence...fever). In such a case EVIDENCE should have been EVIDENCES.
Patanjali is correct. I just wanted to point out - A and E are actually both grammatically correct choices. So, whenever you're left with several grammatically correct choices, the next things to consider are meaning and concision.

E changes the meaning of the original sentence by changing the number of visas and cards in question. The original sentence makes clear that each person only needs one visa and one landing card, so there is no reason to change that. A clarification, though - we do not have to turn EVIDENCE into EVIDENCES for parallelism. For one thing, the word itself could mean one item, several items, or merely the abstract idea of evidence, so it's not pluralizable. It's ok to have singular nouns parallel to plural nouns.

A is in the passive voice, and there is no reason that the passive voice would be required in this sentence, so it's preferable to use the active voice.
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by iongmat » Mon Jan 21, 2013 1:39 am
ceilidh.erickson wrote: *The only time that articles are necessary to parallelism is when a present participle is being used as a noun (gerund). For example, in OG #119: "New theories propose that catastrophic impacts of asteroids and comets may have caused reversals in the Earth's magnetic field, the onset of ice ages, the splitting apart continents 80 million years ago, and great volcanic eruptions."
"The" was necessary to turn "splitting" into a noun.
Hello Ceilidh, I cam across a question in OG13, where the correct answer is:

Most efforts to combat such mosquito-borne diseases as malaria and dengue have focused on either vaccinating humans or exterminating mosquitoes with pesticides.

So, are the present participles (vaccinating and exterminating) not being used as nouns here?
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by patanjali.purpose » Mon Jan 21, 2013 1:33 pm
ceilidh.erickson wrote:
patanjali.purpose wrote:
sachindia wrote:Hi Ceilidh and Brain,
I got the right answer which is D but I don't quite understand why A and E are wrong.
Please help.
E. they would need visas, landing cards, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever for each of them.

VISAS, CARDS,..implies THEY would need VISAS/CARDS (may be more than ONE VISA). The presence of EACH before NEED in D makes brings this clarity that ONE TRAVELER WOULD need only ONE.

FOR EACH OF THEM seems to modify last part of element (evidence...fever). In such a case EVIDENCE should have been EVIDENCES.
A clarification, though - we do not have to turn EVIDENCE into EVIDENCES for parallelism. For one thing, the word itself could mean one item, several items, or merely the abstract idea of evidence, so it's not pluralizable. It's ok to have singular nouns parallel to plural nouns.
Thanks a lot. Is there any way to understand whether we require plural form or singular form (eg EVIDENCES or EVIDENCE above) for such abstract nouns?

Is this correct to say that EVIDENCES or EVIDENCE both are OK?
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by ceilidh.erickson » Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:59 pm
patanjali.purpose wrote: Thanks a lot. Is there any way to understand whether we require plural form or singular form (eg EVIDENCES or EVIDENCE above) for such abstract nouns?

Is this correct to say that EVIDENCES or EVIDENCE both are OK?
EVIDENCE is one of those funny words in English that can't really be pluralized from a meaning perspective, because it's a "mass noun." There are lots of these words - MONEY, STUFF, etc - that already contain the idea of multiple items. Some of these (such as MONEY, FRUIT, or LIQUID) can be pluralized if you're talking about different kinds of those things (multiple currencies = MONIES, apples + bananas = FRUITS).

For whatever reason, in common English usage, EVIDENCE is never pluralized (neither is STUFF). You could argue that there are different kinds of evidence out there, and you wouldn't be wrong... but this is really just an idiom, not a grammatical rule.
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by ceilidh.erickson » Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:07 pm
iongmat wrote:
ceilidh.erickson wrote: *The only time that articles are necessary to parallelism is when a present participle is being used as a noun (gerund). For example, in OG #119: "New theories propose that catastrophic impacts of asteroids and comets may have caused reversals in the Earth's magnetic field, the onset of ice ages, the splitting apart continents 80 million years ago, and great volcanic eruptions."
"The" was necessary to turn "splitting" into a noun.
Hello Ceilidh, I cam across a question in OG13, where the correct answer is:

Most efforts to combat such mosquito-borne diseases as malaria and dengue have focused on either vaccinating humans or exterminating mosquitoes with pesticides.

So, are the present participles (vaccinating and exterminating) not being used as nouns here?
Yes, they are being used as nouns (aka gerunds) in this context. When used with a preposition such as ON, the present participle functions as a noun, because a preposition calls for a noun or noun phrase. When a present participle is in a prepositional phrase like this, it's already understood that it's a noun, so we don't need the article to maintain parallelism.

In the other example I gave, the parallel list was:
the impact of asteroids and comets may have caused:
- reversals
- the onset
- the splitting
- eruptions

Because these are not prepositional phrases, the present participle is not understood to be a noun by itself. Without THE in front of SPLITTING, it becomes a MODIFIER, rather than a noun. Here, the article is needed to make it a noun.
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by iongmat » Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:52 pm
ceilidh.erickson wrote:When a present participle is in a prepositional phrase like this, it's already understood that it's a noun, so we don't need the article to maintain parallelism.
Thanks Ceilidh. If we look at # 130 in OG12 "..lead to lowering interest rates.."

The OE says: "Lowering" is a participle, whereas "a lowering" is a gerund and functions as a noun.

Since "lowering" follows the preposition "to", it should have been clear that "lowering" is a Gerund. But OG says "Lowering" is a participle. What are your views on this.
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by terraceho » Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:47 pm
Hi, experts!

As for A, i think there could be a pronoun ambiguity problem.
them can refer to either "travelers" or "a visa, a landing card, and evidence of inoculation against typhoid fever"..
Am i right?

Besides, without such pronoun ambiguity problem, as both A and D are gramatically right, can A seem to be better in order to follow the original meaning of the sentence (so choice A..)?

thanks a lot!!
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