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anthropologists - usage of THE

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anthropologists - usage of THE

by mmslf75 » Sat Jan 02, 2010 6:16 am
According to anthropologists, the use of human language covers a wide spectrum from practical communication between people engaged in the same task to establishing hierarchy within a social group.

A practical communication between people engaged in the same task to establishing hierarchy

B communicating practically between people engaging in the same task to the establishment of hierarchy

C practical communication between people engaged in the same task to the establishing of hierarchy

D communicating practically between people engaging in the same task to hierarchy established

E practical communication between people engaged in the same task to the establishment of hierarchy

OA is E

Query :

I have seen examples of the type

THE X and THE Y
THE X and Y

However, here MGMAT says that it is OK to have

X and THE Y

How is it possible? Can some1 throw some light on this please

[spoiler]E) CORRECT. This choice correctly changes Y to a regular noun phrase "the establishment of hierarchy," so that this phrase is now parallel to X, "practical communication." It is not necessary that both phrases have the article "the."[/spoiler]
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by CrazyGmatter » Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:29 am
IMO A..

Parallelism violated in E.

instructors pls pitch in.
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by lunarpower » Fri Jan 08, 2010 2:30 am
CrazyGmatter wrote:IMO A..

Parallelism violated in E.

instructors pls pitch in.
nah. parallelism is fine.

"THE" is not a function of the overall grammar of the sentence; it's a function of the particular word(s). i.e., it's idiomatic - some words require it, while others don't.

here's the simplest example i can think of:
she has lived in the United States and in Canada.
this is clearly the correct form, even though one of the parts has "the" and the other doesn't. i.e., it's idiomatically wrong to just say "in United States"; it's likewise wrong to say "in the Canada".
these aren't grammatical issues; they're idioms. you have to say THE with "United States" because... well, you just do. similarly, "Canada" is just "Canada" (no "the") because ... it just is.

same with these sorts of words.

the issue of which nouns take articles and which don't is EXTREMELY nuanced and irregular. fortunately, as far as we've seen, the gmat NEVER includes problems that depend on your recognizing the presence/absence of articles. (same here - you can figure out this problem just from the parallelism between nouns.)
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by mmslf75 » Fri Jan 08, 2010 7:28 am
@ Ron,
whoa !!
As GMAt doesnt test this, E is undoubtedly the winner.

Was thinking too much!
MGMAT SC book stresses on usage of "THE" and (offtopic, here ) "POSSESSIVE PRONOUN refering to NOUN with Apostrophe 's' " (stacey has confirmed on BTG that GMAT doesnt this ;-) )

That is possibly what forced me to rethink the OA


But, I have yet another query here

Check out Q131 of OG 12

Option D says that "The use of definit article THE makes it seems as though the energy being referred to in this part of the sentence is that of France "

This means... GMAT is worried abt "THE" usage ..right ? ;-)
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by CrazyGmatter » Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:07 am
lunarpower wrote:
CrazyGmatter wrote:IMO A..

Parallelism violated in E.

instructors pls pitch in.
nah. parallelism is fine.

"THE" is not a function of the overall grammar of the sentence; it's a function of the particular word(s). i.e., it's idiomatic - some words require it, while others don't.

here's the simplest example i can think of:
she has lived in the United States and in Canada.
this is clearly the correct form, even though one of the parts has "the" and the other doesn't. i.e., it's idiomatically wrong to just say "in United States"; it's likewise wrong to say "in the Canada".
these aren't grammatical issues; they're idioms. you have to say THE with "United States" because... well, you just do. similarly, "Canada" is just "Canada" (no "the") because ... it just is.

same with these sorts of words.

the issue of which nouns take articles and which don't is EXTREMELY nuanced and irregular. fortunately, as far as we've seen, the gmat NEVER includes problems that depend on your recognizing the presence/absence of articles. (same here - you can figure out this problem just from the parallelism between nouns.)
Thanks a lot Ron..Its good to hear that gmat never includes problems that test esoteric concepts like the one above.
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by lunarpower » Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:45 am
CrazyGmatter wrote:Thanks a lot Ron..Its good to hear that gmat never includes problems that test esoteric concepts like the one above.
yeah. but the strangest part of it all is that they do test a LOT of things that can rightfully be labeled "esoteric concepts". it's always interesting to see what they choose to emphasize and what they don't.

considering the heavy emphasis on other kinds of idiomatic usage, it's actually a surprise that they don't test this particular instance.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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