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Another meaning's perspective question on the GMAT!!!

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Another meaning's perspective question on the GMAT!!!

by [email protected] » Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:43 pm
At the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah, W. E. B. Du Bois settled in Gharla and became the editor of the Encyclopedia Africana.

[A] At the invitation of

When he was invited by

[C] An invitation coming from

[D] An invitation that came from

[E] After having an invitation by



Honestly speaking this is one of the GMAT's favorite meaning perspective question. I have solved these types before and you will find these in your CATs as well.

Meaning based question:

I came down to A and B, and B is wrong because it happens to be a very ordinary sentence. When I got an invitation, I went. But guyzzz be alert, this is not an ordinary sentence. The emphasis is placed on the guy who called and not that there was a time of something.

eg: Only at the invitation of Indira Gandhi, Kapil Dev went for the celebration. The idea that is presented by the author is not that there was a time of celebration but the main idea was that the invitation was sent by INDIRA GANDHI.

I hope this helped...

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by [email protected] » Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:44 pm
And of course the given OA is A.

Forgot to mention.
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by The Iceman » Wed Nov 28, 2012 10:26 pm
B indeed changes the meaning. In B it seems as if invitation, settlement, and Du Bois' becoming an editor all happened at the same time. However, this is not the intended meaning of the sentence.

The intended meaning is that Du Bois agreed to Kwame Nkrumah's invitation for settling in Gharla and Du Bois implemented the same.

Hence option A is the right choice.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Nov 29, 2012 5:34 am
I just wanted to offer my opinion on this question.

Do be careful when you talk about "changing the meaning" in the sentence. Iceman - I see that you are discussing the "intended meaning" which is a better way of talking about this.

Here is a link to a posting that I wrote a couple of years ago where I went through each sentence correction question in the 12th edition of the Official Guide. What I found is that there is no original meaning that we can discern from answer choice A and that choice A is actually the one most frequently eliminated based on 'meaning'!

https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-truth-ab ... tml#342304

At Veritas we do not say "intended meaning" because this can get confused with "original meaning" in the minds of some. Instead we talk about "logical" or "not logical." A meaning is logical if it is possible, such as "someone starting a newspaper company who had no prior experience in the newspaper business." We do not know if this is accurate or not so don't worry about that, just decide if it is rationally possible. "Not logical" would be implying that the car decided to paint itself blue or that a person wrote a novel before he was born.

In this case of choice B on this question, I am not sure that it really violates the meaning. If the intention here is to say that Kwame Nkrumah invited W.E.B. Du Bois to Gharla and Du Bois then moved to Garla and became the editor of the Encyclopedia Africana -- choice B seems to convey this.

I would go more to an awkwardness of the grammar here on choice B. The pronoun "he" is used well before the antecedent "W.E.B Bu Bois" and the phrase "When he was invited by Kwame Nkrumah" is awkward compared to the very precise "at the invitation of".

There are many ways to think about sentence correction...I personally would eliminate choice B based more on the awkwardness of the grammar here and avoid having to try to decide what the author may have intended - especially since choice A does not necessarily convey that intention on any particular question.
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by GMAT Kolaveri » Thu Nov 29, 2012 8:02 am
One can easily narrow it down to A or B.
Between A and B, I would choose A as one of the official explanation in OG says that *when* should be used only with a time frame i.e date, year etc
OA: A
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by tanviet » Fri Nov 30, 2012 3:42 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:I just wanted to offer my opinion on this question.

Do be careful when you talk about "changing the meaning" in the sentence. Iceman - I see that you are discussing the "intended meaning" which is a better way of talking about this.

Here is a link to a posting that I wrote a couple of years ago where I went through each sentence correction question in the 12th edition of the Official Guide. What I found is that there is no original meaning that we can discern from answer choice A and that choice A is actually the one most frequently eliminated based on 'meaning'!

https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-truth-ab ... tml#342304

At Veritas we do not say "intended meaning" because this can get confused with "original meaning" in the minds of some. Instead we talk about "logical" or "not logical." A meaning is logical if it is possible, such as "someone starting a newspaper company who had no prior experience in the newspaper business." We do not know if this is accurate or not so don't worry about that, just decide if it is rationally possible. "Not logical" would be implying that the car decided to paint itself blue or that a person wrote a novel before he was born.

In this case of choice B on this question, I am not sure that it really violates the meaning. If the intention here is to say that Kwame Nkrumah invited W.E.B. Du Bois to Gharla and Du Bois then moved to Garla and became the editor of the Encyclopedia Africana -- choice B seems to convey this.

I would go more to an awkwardness of the grammar here on choice B. The pronoun "he" is used well before the antecedent "W.E.B Bu Bois" and the phrase "When he was invited by Kwame Nkrumah" is awkward compared to the very precise "at the invitation of".

There are many ways to think about sentence correction...I personally would eliminate choice B based more on the awkwardness of the grammar here and avoid having to try to decide what the author may have intended - especially since choice A does not necessarily convey that intention on any particular question.
normally, the correct answer is the one which is most logic. But, in some og question in which 2 choices offer 2 logic meaning. Yes, if each of these choices stands alone, it will be logic totally. In this case the oa will be the choice which is closer to the meaning of the original choice.

if some onw reply my this posting, I will post that og question.

the oa must have meaning which is
- most logic (of course, in this case , disregarding the meaning of the original
- if 2 choices are logic, the oa must closer to the meaning of the original
- if 2 choices are logic, the oa must be not wordy.

I think there are only 3 cases in which the meaning game, the focus of SC play. Normally, one of 3 cases above happens when we eliminate 2,3 choice which are not grammatical . choices which contain mechanical grammar error can be spotted easily but this spotting is only the first round of the game. the last round is to find which meaning is consider OA.

pls, comment.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Nov 30, 2012 5:07 am
duongthang -

"Original meaning" or "intended meaning"?

I would love to see the Official question you mentioned.

Thanks!
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by tanviet » Sat Dec 01, 2012 1:59 am
David, the following is from og. The point I want make is that whe we face 2 answer choices which are both grammatical and logic, the answer choice which is further from the meaning of the stem of the original which is possibly not grammatical or not logic, is wrong.

in the following, B is wrong because it is further from the meaning of the stem of the original choice though B is logic and grammatical.

I am happy to see you, an expert, discuss with us. we want to learn from experts very much. pls, comment/correct my thinking. the more detail you post the better for us.


The rise in Amercan exports was possible because //international trade barriers were lowered and unprecedented gains in efficiency had been obtained through the use of automated robotic equipment in American manufacturing plants. //

A. international trade barriers were lowered and unprecedented gains in efficiency had been obtained through the use of automated robotic equipment in American manufacturing plants
B. America lowered international trade barriers and the use of automated robotic equipment in American manufacturing plants resulted in unprecedented gains in efficiency
C. international trade barriers were lowered and unprecedented gains in efficiency were obtained through the use of automated robotic equipment in American manufacturing plants
D. international trade barriers were lowered, obtaining unprecedented gains in efficiency through the automated use of robotic equipment in manufacturing plants of America
E. America lowered trade barriers internationally and the use of unprecedented automated robotic equipment in American manufacturing plants resulted in efficiency gains
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat Dec 01, 2012 5:12 am
Are you sure this is an Official Question? The question that you posted is not from the OG 11, 12, 13 or the Verbal Review. It is however from an article on Beat the GMAT written by another preparation company.

The original sentence seems to be taken from a website for a mining and stone crushing company, called SBM. The original sentence is from an update to a blog post and may not have been written by native English speakers.

Here is the original blog post: "jan 3, 2012 413 [0], given 31 the rise in american exports was possible because international trade barriers were lowered and had been obtained through the use of automated robotic equipment in american manufacturing plants."

Now it is possible that this company was quoting the Official Guide to the GMAT, but the only other use of that sentence that I have found was the article written by the test prep company. The article this was taken from was an article on distortion of meaning and the question may have been written by the test prep company to prove their point.

By the way, I am not convinced that choice B is logical anyway. How does America lower all of the international trade barriers? It is not just the barriers that America controls that were lowered, after all this is talking about American exports, so barriers need to have been lowered in China, India, Brazil, is it logical for America to lower those? I am also not convinced by the grammar of choice A.

Anyway, I find that we may be dissecting a sentence from a mining and stone crushing company blog. If this is an Official Question please let me know.

Or if there is a different Official Question I would be very happy to discuss that one!

Thanks!!
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