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by goelmohit2002 » Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:33 am
Stacey Koprince wrote:
Do you mean to say that we can forget about this aim at Vs aim to distinction atleast for GMAT....

If yes, then it will be yet another myth buster from your end Smile

Can you please tell have you ever encountered a problem in GMAT that tests or kicks out options based on this aim at Vs aim to split ?
It doesn't mean that they will never test an idiom that they haven't tested before - they could. My comment was more of a practical nature. There are thousands of idioms in the language. We can't study them all. So let's spend our time studying the ones that we know they've actually tested.

I think goel's note about the explanation for the problem up above is very telling. They've got different "aim" idioms in there, but they don't discuss the variations in the explanation. From their point of view, then, we shouldn't be using that to decide what to pick or eliminate (at least on this question anyway!). If they don't consider it important enough to discuss, then I don't consider it important enough to study. :)
Thanks a lot Stacey...surely GMAT can test any of the idiom anyday...

But can we infer that your message( based on your experience with GMAT till date :-) ) is that "Aim At" Vs "Aim to" is not a distinction which we should decide our answer on(i.e. the primary reason to kick out the options) ?

If yes then surely we can concentrate our energy on other better things :-)
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:56 pm
On this problem, no, we shouldn't be using that. But I have seen other instances of this being tested. If you look up "aim" in the idioms chapter of the 4th edition of our strategy guide, it gives the main ways we've seen this tested on the test:

good: aimed at <-ing word>
good: with the aim of <-ing word>
suspect: the aim of which (is/was) <to verb>
bad: with the aim <to verb>
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by sk8ternite » Tue Aug 11, 2009 7:08 pm
Why is A wrong, cant the new rules aim to identify fans and seat them, and so both parts of the sentences that describe the new rules are parallel, that aim to...that seat them, can someone explain please?
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by goelmohit2002 » Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:30 pm
sk8ternite wrote:Why is A wrong, cant the new rules aim to identify fans and seat them, and so both parts of the sentences that describe the new rules are parallel, that aim to...that seat them, can someone explain please?
Hi sk8ternite,

How can rules seat them ? rules can only aim to seat them and not seat them actually....But A says that Rules do two things:

rules that
a) aim to ....XYZ
b) seat them...

B IMO is illogical.
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by farooq » Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:03 am
OG Verbal_2nd Edition. Question Number 26.

The Baldrick Manufacturing Company has for several years followed a policy aimed at decreasing operating costs and improving the efficiency of its distribution system.
(A) aimed at decreasing operating costs and improving
(B) aimed at the decreasing of operating costs and to improve
(C) aiming at the decreasing of operating costs and improving
(D) the aim of which is the decreasing of operating costs and improving
(E) with the aim to decrease operating costs and to improve

OA is A

As per GMAT books, Idiom "with the aim to" is always Incorrect.

A: I don't have any info so I'll scan other answers choices.

B: aimed at the decreasing...........and to improve. Violates llsm.

C: Improving is a participle, whereas "the decreasing" is a gerund. Again violates llsm. (this type of errors frequently appear in GMAT SC questions).

D: the aim of which is......awkward.

E: "with the aim of" is the correct idiom. "with the aim to" is Incorrect.


So only A remains.

When we couldn't find any grammatical mistake in the given SC and we struggled a lot to identify the right answer from BCDE, in that case I think choosing A is the right option :)
Regards,
Farooq Farooqui.
London. UK

It is your Attitude, not your Aptitude, that determines your Altitude.
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by gman.gowri » Thu Sep 09, 2010 5:33 am
Thanks for that, this particular question is an example in Manhattan Sentence Correction. So, even though in the below example , AIM TO is followed by a verb(REDUCE), it is wrong because it is not of the format "Subject+AIM TO+VERB"?

We adopted new procedures WITH THE AIM TO REDUCE theft.
Stacey Koprince wrote:Received a PM asking me to respond on the "aim X" idiom.

Make sure you post the ENTIRE sentence / phrase when talking about an idiom. The incorrect example given in the book is:

"We adopted new procedures WITH THE AIM TO REDUCE theft."

That's not a correct usage - that entire phrase. That doesn't mean that "aim to" by itself is always wrong. :)

To fix the above sentence, we could say something like:
"We adopted new procedures AIMED AT REDUCING theft" meaning: the new procedures are aimed at <achieving some goal>

or "We adopted new procedures WITH THE AIM OF REDUCING theft." Full idiom here is "with the aim of"

We could also say:
She aims to please.
Her aim to please makes it easy for people to walk all over her.

"aim to" is perfectly fine there.

Some stadiums have adopted rules that aim <to do something else>. If you want to put a verb action after aim, you need to use "to <verb>." Idiom: X that aim to Y ("rules that aim to identify").

Idioms are numerous and complex. I only bother to study the ones that have been published in official questions because there are, literally, thousands and thousands of idioms in the language. Can't memorize them all and don't want to waste my time memorizing something if I have no idea whether it will be on the test. I don't know where the above question came from - if it's an official question, great, study the specific idiom. If not, forget about it! (The idioms listed in our book are all pulled from official questions.)
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