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Stuck On High 30s - low 40s for Verbal

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by mpaudena » Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:24 pm
I can't seem to escape the high 30s and I'm thinking it comes down to a certain understanding that just has not come to me. I'm hoping I can get someone who has scored in the mid to high 40s to look at this sentence correction question to describe what he is thinking on these questions so that I can divine some understanding for myself. When I make mistakes on sentence correction the wrong answer is usually wrong because of it is awkwardly stated. I have no idea how to recognize awkwardly stated answers. Here are some examples of what continuously baffles me:

Because the management of a large corporation is will often refer to macroeconomic forecasts when it plans for the future, it is probable that its belief in their soundness is significant.

1)

2) it is probable that the soundness of their belief would be significant.

3) believing their soundness is probably not significant.

4) the significance of their belief in its soundness is probable.

5) its belief in their soundness is probably significant.

What is the answer and why? Thanks in advance.

While I'm at it here's another example of the ambiguous answers that I just can't seem to grasp. Please tell me what you see is wrong with these sentences:

During the 18th Century roughly 0.5 billion grams of gold are estimated to have left Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, and Haiti and supplied 80% of the world's total quantity of recovered gold.

and one of the answer choices:

Roughly 0.5 billion grams of gold is estimated as having left Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, and Haiti, supplying

Again, thanks in advance.
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by aakaps » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:37 pm
Because the management of a large corporation is will often refer to macroeconomic forecasts when it plans for the future, 5) its belief in their soundness is probably significant

R
1 is wrong as their referes to mgt in underline but it is singular
2. same
3.changes meaning
4.same as 1
5.Reason-- Pronoun and Subject Matching. Its matches to management.

Am I correct?
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by aakaps » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:39 pm
Gold is singular? Like Milk or water so the other choice in your answer choice?
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by beatthegmat2910 » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:39 pm
For the first question, I think E is the answer.The other choices don't even make logical sense.

In the 2nd question, the 'are' after Gold in incorrect. The answer choice seems correct.Can you please give the other choices for this question.
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by mpaudena » Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:40 am
aakaps wrote:Because the management of a large corporation is will often refer to macroeconomic forecasts when it plans for the future, 5) its belief in their soundness is probably significant

R
1 is wrong as their referes to mgt in underline but it is singular
2. same
3.changes meaning
4.same as 1
5.Reason-- Pronoun and Subject Matching. Its matches to management.

Am I correct?
You are correct but not for the reasons stated in the Kaplan CAT. Moreover, your reason for why number one (which is the answer I chose) is wrong is present in the correct answer choice. That is, the original sentence says "...its belief in their soundness...." Number 5 says "its belief in theirsoundness...." The truth is "their" in the original and in number 5 refers to the soundness of the forecasts. "Its" refers to management. "...its belief...."

The rationale I was given was that it sounded awkward. Everyone of these "awkward" sentences that I get wrong gets points taken from me and I can't seem to understand how to overcome them.
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by mpaudena » Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:48 am
beatthegmat2910 wrote:For the first question, I think E is the answer.The other choices don't even make logical sense.

In the 2nd question, the 'are' after Gold in incorrect. The answer choice seems correct.Can you please give the other choices for this question.
I can't copy and paste and transcribing is difficult. Regarding your response - "are" may in fact be one of the problems but Kaplan explains this as being problematic because "are estimated" is in the present where "to have left" is in the past and that is inconsistent. The other answer choice is wrong because gold "estimated as having left" is awkward. I just feel like these awkward explanations are very subjective so I need someone to explain to me how they are consistently answering these questions correctly.
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by grockit_andrea » Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:01 am
Regarding the second sentence, "gold" IS singular, but the subject is actually "grams," so a plural verb is appropriate. The verb tense issue is a separate problem, but if the sentence were in the present tense, "are" would be correct.
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by thailandvc » Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:10 am
I think their refers to forecasts not the soundness of the forecasts. If you insert the soundness of the forecasts into E, it doesn't make any sense. Not only the that the soundness of the forecasts is singular. ForecastS is plural.
mpaudena wrote:
aakaps wrote:Because the management of a large corporation is will often refer to macroeconomic forecasts when it plans for the future, 5) its belief in their soundness is probably significant

R
1 is wrong as their referes to mgt in underline but it is singular
2. same
3.changes meaning
4.same as 1
5.Reason-- Pronoun and Subject Matching. Its matches to management.

Am I correct?
You are correct but not for the reasons stated in the Kaplan CAT. Moreover, your reason for why number one (which is the answer I chose) is wrong is present in the correct answer choice. That is, the original sentence says "...its belief in their soundness...." Number 5 says "its belief in theirsoundness...." The truth is "their" in the original and in number 5 refers to the soundness of the forecasts. "Its" refers to management. "...its belief...."

The rationale I was given was that it sounded awkward. Everyone of these "awkward" sentences that I get wrong gets points taken from me and I can't seem to understand how to overcome them.
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by mpaudena » Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:24 am
U r correct. I was imprecise, but that is what I
meant.
thailandvc wrote:I think their refers to forecasts not the soundness of the forecasts. If you insert the soundness of the forecasts into E, it doesn't make any sense. Not only the that the soundness of the forecasts is singular. ForecastS is plural.
mpaudena wrote:
aakaps wrote:Because the management of a large corporation is will often refer to macroeconomic forecasts when it plans for the future, 5) its belief in their soundness is probably significant

R
1 is wrong as their referes to mgt in underline but it is singular
2. same
3.changes meaning
4.same as 1
5.Reason-- Pronoun and Subject Matching. Its matches to management.

Am I correct?
You are correct but not for the reasons stated in the Kaplan CAT. Moreover, your reason for why number one (which is the answer I chose) is wrong is present in the correct answer choice. That is, the original sentence says "...its belief in their soundness...." Number 5 says "its belief in theirsoundness...." The truth is "their" in the original and in number 5 refers to the soundness of the forecasts. "Its" refers to management. "...its belief...."

The rationale I was given was that it sounded awkward. Everyone of these "awkward" sentences that I get wrong gets points taken from me and I can't seem to understand how to overcome them.
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by mpaudena » Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:53 am
grockit_andrea wrote:Regarding the second sentence, "gold" IS singular, but the subject is actually "grams," so a plural verb is appropriate. The verb tense issue is a separate problem, but if the sentence were in the present tense, "are" would be correct.
I don't see a verb tense issue here. The estimation is taking place in the present. In fact, the correct answer is very similar:

It is estimated that during the 18th century roughly .5 grams of gold left...

What is the difference here? "It is estimated" is present and "left" is the past. These ambiguous answer choices baffle me. As a tutor have you dealt with people having the problem I describe and is there a way out?
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by grockit_andrea » Tue Sep 01, 2009 6:13 am
Verb tenses have to agree with the meaning throughout the sentence, and the underlined portion has more than one verb in it, so those verbs necessarily impact each other. All I meant was that without seeing the answer choices and being able to evaluate the verbs within each, I was judging the appropriateness of the verb based purely on the plural/singular issue.
Andrea A.
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by aakaps » Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:55 am
During the 18th Century roughly 0.5 billion grams of gold is estimated to have left Columbia.

IMHO Gold is uncountable and Singular.

Similar Sentence can be:

During the 18th Century roughly 0.5 billion liters of milk is estimated to have left Columbia
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