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mgmat: 500-600: Teachers

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by this_time_i_will » Sat Jul 03, 2010 9:43 am
Teachers in this country have generally been trained either to approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles without truly understanding how to apply them.


to approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles

to approach mathematics like a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles

to approach mathematics as a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles

that they should approach mathematics as a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles

that they should approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles
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by albatross86 » Sat Jul 03, 2010 10:17 am
Correct idiom is "trained to do X" .... "trained that they should..." is not preferable in this context. Eliminate D and E.

You need parallelism in the either A or B usage, so "to approach" needs to be parallel with "to force"

Eliminate A.

Also, the difference between "like" and "as" is being tested. Approach X as Y is the correct idiom. Approach X like Y is not preferable here.

Pick C.
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by this_time_i_will » Sat Jul 03, 2010 10:26 am
how to decide whether we are comparing the approach or we are comapring mathematics & creative activity . This will decide whether to use as or like..right?
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by albatross86 » Sat Jul 03, 2010 10:32 am
this_time_i_will wrote:how to decide whether we are comparing the approach or we are comapring mathematics & creative activity . This will decide whether to use as or like..right?
Good question!

Actually, here the phrase "to approach mathematics like a creative ability" is not to be confused with a statement such as "mathematics is like a creative ability." (though this itself is not the best usage of like)

Here we are saying "approach mathematics." How? - like a creative ability. - it acts as an adverbial phrase.

You cannot approach something "like" something else. You can approach it "as" something - this is purely idiom convention.

It won't be grammatically correct to interpret "mathematics like a creative activity" as a compound noun. Thus "like" or "as" is linked to approach (the verb) and not mathematics (the object).
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by this_time_i_will » Sat Jul 03, 2010 10:45 am
Abhay,
I understood that approach as is idiomatic. What is basically wanted to understand was the fundamental way of approahing such like/as questions. At times i find it diifcult to understand whether the nouns are being compared or the clause
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by albatross86 » Sat Jul 03, 2010 10:47 am
this_time_i_will wrote:Abhay,
I understood that approach as is idiomatic. What is basically wanted to understand was the fundamental way of approahing such like/as questions. At times i find it diifcult to understand whether the nouns are being compared or the clause
Oh, I see.

Well to be honest, I'm not sure if I can succinctly state a rule for this, because I sense it is purely contextual. It depends on the sentence structure. If the phrase following like is adverbial, it is the verb that is being described, but if it is adjectival it is the noun.

I hope an expert can put it better for you, sorry!
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by eccentric » Sat Jul 03, 2010 12:03 pm
@this_time_i_will: the rule for usage of like is to make comparison between two objects while such is used to cite examples. Even in this context (such) as fits the bill
IMO C is correct choice
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by ansumania » Wed Jul 07, 2010 3:47 pm
albatross86 wrote:Correct idiom is "trained to do X" .... "trained that they should..." is not preferable in this context. Eliminate D and E.

You need parallelism in the either A or B usage, so "to approach" needs to be parallel with "to force"

Eliminate A.

Also, the difference between "like" and "as" is being tested. Approach X as Y is the correct idiom. Approach X like Y is not preferable here.

Pick C.
hi,

even I am not sure........here creative activity is a noun ; 'like' can modify a noun.....unable to decide between B and C....:(
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by Stacey Koprince » Sat Jul 10, 2010 10:26 am
Received a PM asking me to respond.

The word "as" is one of those annoying words that can be used in many different ways - it is not used solely in comparisons where we need to decide when to use "like" and when to use "as." "As" can be a preposition, an adverb, a conjunction, even a pronoun, and there are different usage rules depending upon what's going on in the sentence.

In this case, we do have the idiom "approach X as Y." X = math and Y = a creative activity. Think about the meaning of the sentence. We are not comparing X to Y. We are not trying to say that X and Y share some characteristic (or that they differ in some way). "Like" vs "as" is a comparison decision - but this is not a comparison situation. So we don't even need to think about whether we have nouns or clauses, because we're not actually comparing 2 things in the first place.

Instead, we've got some teachers approaching X <as/like> Y. The question then is: what word goes in the idiom "approach X <?> Y?" The answer: "as."
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