concept wrote:Hi Everyone,
OG 12 109 says that it is wrong to place infinitives immediately after a noun. does it apply universally?
for instance: 'I bought a book to prepare for GMAT' - is this sentence wrong?

There is not such universal rule.
Actually 109 tests the correct idiomatic expression.

Correct Idiom is AID IN....not AID TO.

FightWithGMAT wrote:

concept wrote:Hi Everyone,
OG 12 109 says that it is wrong to place infinitives immediately after a noun. does it apply universally?
for instance: 'I bought a book to prepare for GMAT' - is this sentence wrong?

There is not such universal rule.
Actually 109 tests the correct idiomatic expression.

Correct Idiom is AID IN....not AID TO.

thanks. I would be more convinced if I also get an yes form an expert for FightWithGmat's reply.

I'm no expert. But , according to Wren 'n' Martin, one of the usages of Infinitives is qualifying a noun.

For Example, Here is a house to let.

That means the rule that was mentioned earlier must have been specific to a particular instance.


Please correct me if I'm wrong

Concept,

I just went through 109. Got it right because I had come across the idiom AID - IN before.

I received a PM about this a while ago.

While I don't have the OG with me right now to look up the explanation at issue, I am also not aware of any rule that says infinitives can't be placed after nouns. The examples provided in this thread seem fine to me, and I can think of plenty of sentences in which an infinitive could be placed after a noun without an error. For instance, you could say, "If you want to know the answer, he is the person to ask." "Person" is a noun, and "to ask" is an infinitive; I don't see a problem there.

grockit_andrea wrote:I received a PM about this a while ago.

While I don't have the OG with me right now to look up the explanation at issue, I am also not aware of any rule that says infinitives can't be placed after nouns. The examples provided in this thread seem fine to me, and I can think of plenty of sentences in which an infinitive could be placed after a noun without an error. For instance, you could say, "If you want to know the answer, he is the person to ask." "Person" is a noun, and "to ask" is an infinitive; I don't see a problem there.

yes Andrea. I think GMAC probably put that explanation in context with the particular case but it ended up looking like a generic rule. After posting this, I have seen a number of OG problems that use 'noun+infinitive' in correct choices. I guess we can close this thread.