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Idioms - Explain the meaning of the sentence please

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archu.mohan: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 17; Joined: Sat Nov 30, 2013 9:39 pm

by archu.mohan » Wed Jan 08, 2014 3:41 pm

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I am trying to understand what the following statement conveys:

He wins frequently, AS MUCH because he plays SO hard AS because he cheats.
(Idioms in CAPS)

Can someone clarify for me please?

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Wed Jan 08, 2014 3:41 pm

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KevinRocci: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 166; Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2013 3:17 pmFollowed by: 21 members; Location: Berkeley, Ca; Thanked: 30 times

by KevinRocci » Wed Jan 15, 2014 9:57 am

archu.mohan wrote:I am trying to understand what the following statement conveys:

He wins frequently, AS MUCH because he plays SO hard AS because he cheats.
(Idioms in CAPS)

Can someone clarify for me please?

I think I might be able to help a little bit.

I am not sure that this is an idiom that you have used in your sentence. It seems to be maybe a confusion between different idioms. For example, "as much as" is an idiom and "so much so" and "so much as" are idioms too. But I don't think that "as much so as" is an idiom. That might be why it's hard to understand. It was hard for me to understand the sentence the first time I saw it.

Here are some links that will give you definitions and examples of the idioms I mentioned:
1. https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/so+much+as
2. https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/so+much+so
3. https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/as+much+as

If I were to write down the idea that you were trying to convey in that sentence, I would probably write something like:

"He wins frequently, as much from playing hard as from cheating."

Again, I would recheck your sources to see if your sentence is correctly written. Also, I'd be interested to find out where this idiom came from since I am not familiar with it.

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Patrick_GMATFix: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1052; Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 1:30 amFollowed by: 98 members; Thanked: 335 times

by Patrick_GMATFix » Wed Jan 15, 2014 8:20 pm

archu.mohan wrote:I am trying to understand what the following statement conveys:

He wins frequently, AS MUCH because he plays SO hard AS because he cheats.
(Idioms in CAPS)

Can someone clarify for me please?

The idiom here is AS MUCH AS. The "so" here just emphasizes how hard he plays. This is similar to "I love so much" or "John is so fast". "so" is an adverb describing "hard".

The sentence tells us that there are two explanations for how frequently he wins. He wins because: (1) he plays so hard and (2) he cheats. The use of "as much as" in comparing the two explanations indicates that they have equal importance.

-Patrick

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To prep my students I use this tool >> (screenshots, video)

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vishaljain12: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 1; Joined: Fri Jul 28, 2017 1:18 am

by vishaljain12 » Fri Jul 28, 2017 1:20 am

Hi Kevin,

It's a really old post but this line came from the Manhattan GMAT 6th Edition book. Specifically from the top of page 142 in the idioms chapter filed as the last "RIGHT" example of "AS...AS".

I would immediately strike this sentence of since it hits the ear wrong but would you say that this is grammatically correct?

Thanks,
Vishal J.

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