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Really baffled by this SC answer!

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Really baffled by this SC answer!

by Ikonik » Mon Feb 07, 2011 5:47 am
Hi, I'm really confused with the answer to this SC question:

"Us attending the conference is dependent on our pilot receiving clearance to take off"

This is a practice question I found, no choices given. Give it your best shot, I'll surprize you with the answer tomorrow.
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by Night reader » Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:09 am
Ikonik wrote:Hi, I'm really confused with the answer to this SC question:

"Us attending the conference is dependent on our pilot receiving clearance to take off"

This is a practice question I found, no choices given. Give it your best shot, I'll surprize you with the answer tomorrow.
when some one bells you door- and you ask who's that, the voice may sound - "it's me" instead of saying "it's I" or more weird form "this is I". We get used to this speaking way and our habits rebuild English grammar. As here:
>> Us attending the conference ... - means just our attending the conference

and there's nothing wrong with this expression, as long as we note that this is informal way of using English and not the best example of English grammar.

>>our pilot receiving ... here we may be dependent only on /our pilot/, because "pilot's receiving" comes next in the order, and without "our pilot" we won't be counting on anything anyway :)

So basically, the sentence should be correct
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by Ikonik » Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:34 pm
Here's the solution I have:

This question is about gerunds and verb tense. In this
sentence, "attending" and "receiving" are gerunds, and take
possessive nouns and pronouns, not direct objects.

Correct: Our attending the conference is dependent on our pilot's receiving clearance to take off.

a. The explanation (in italics above) sounds abstruse to me, could anyone elucidate on this a little.
b. 'pilot's receiving' hmmm... it's stated above is that 'receiving' is a gerund - believe that means it is treated as a noun, just like - my sister's birthday, with birthday being a noun, and more appropriate may be - my sister's swimming has improved - swimming being a gerund. (Am I correct here?) With that logic, pilot's receiving maybe works.
But can 'receiving' be treated as a verb, or any part of speech? How can gerunds be identified, and what rules do they have to abide by?
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by Night reader » Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:02 am
good so the OA has taken, as I expected, the formal approach and suggested replacement of us with our - I did not have the answer choices-yet I explained the understood meaning the previous post :)

Now gerunds can really act as the nouns and may be called by test writers, in half remembered analysis case, the "nouns". However, IOM - we can't say the pilot's receiving clearance (and receiving is a noun here); it must be "the pilot's receiving of clearance" then\

what's the source?
Ikonik wrote:Here's the solution I have:

This question is about gerunds and verb tense. In this
sentence, "attending" and "receiving" are gerunds, and take
possessive nouns and pronouns, not direct objects.

Correct: Our attending the conference is dependent on our pilot's receiving clearance to take off.

a. The explanation (in italics above) sounds abstruse to me, could anyone elucidate on this a little.
b. 'pilot's receiving' hmmm... it's stated above is that 'receiving' is a gerund - believe that means it is treated as a noun, just like - my sister's birthday, with birthday being a noun, and more appropriate may be - my sister's swimming has improved - swimming being a gerund. (Am I correct here?) With that logic, pilot's receiving maybe works.
But can 'receiving' be treated as a verb, or any part of speech? How can gerunds be identified, and what rules do they have to abide by?
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by VivianKerr » Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:09 pm
Yup, you got it. This is a gerund. A gerund looks like a participle verb (it ends in -ing) but is being used as a subject.

Running is my favorite form of exercise.

Running is the subject, and a gerund.

Here the "attending" is the subject; "is" is the verb. "Our" just described the "attending."

I like to remember gerunds because there are so many movie titles that use gerunds:

Raising Hope, Finding Nemo, Being Julia, Saving Private Ryan, Being John Malkovich...the list goes on and on :)
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by Ikonik » Tue Mar 08, 2011 12:47 am
Night reader wrote:good so the OA has taken, as I expected, the formal approach and suggested replacement of us with our - I did not have the answer choices-yet I explained the understood meaning the previous post :)

Now gerunds can really act as the nouns and may be called by test writers, in half remembered analysis case, the "nouns". However, IOM - we can't say the pilot's receiving clearance (and receiving is a noun here); it must be "the pilot's receiving of clearance" then\

what's the source?
This is from the Manhattan Flash Cards, available for download on the Manhattan website. Hence no choices.
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