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Diabetes and its complications

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Diabetes and its complications

by goelmohit2002 » Sat Sep 05, 2009 8:52 am

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Hi All,

Following is OG-12, Q#5.

[spoiler]OA = "A". For kicking out C. OG says, "has the rank of" is unidiomatic. Can someone please tell why the same is unidiomatic.
[/spoiler]

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Diabetes, together with its serious complications, ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only by heart disease and cancer
(a) ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only
(b) rank as the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed
(c) has the rank of the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed
(d) are the nation's third leading causes of death, surpassed only
(e) have been ranked as the nation's third leading causes of death, only surpassed
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by kyabe » Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:34 am

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I wont comment on OG's explanation (Since we are playing GMAT's game). But yes I can explain why C is wrong. C says that Diabetes has rank blah blah blah... How can diabetes have rank?? I dont think it can have any rank...

Does this makes sense??
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by goelmohit2002 » Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:44 am

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kyabe wrote:I wont comment on OG's explanation (Since we are playing GMAT's game). But yes I can explain why C is wrong. C says that Diabetes has rank blah blah blah... How can diabetes have rank?? I dont think it can have any rank...

Does this makes sense??
Thanks Kyabe !!!

do you mean to say that "has" over here means possession and not the present perfect tense ? If yes...then can you please tell how to decide when it is possession and when the same is present perfect ?
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by scoobydooby » Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:31 am

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also, "ranks" is far more concise than "has the rank of " which is wordy and awkward.

another error in C: "only" should be placed next to the phrase it limits. "surpassed only by x and y" is better than "only surpassed by x and y".
"by x and y" is the limiting phrase as these are the only two diseases ranking ahead of diabetes.
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by goelmohit2002 » Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:44 pm

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scoobydooby wrote:also, "ranks" is far more concise than "has the rank of " which is wordy and awkward.
Hi Scooby,

Just one small query in order to avoid similar issues in future...is "has the rank of" awkward b'coz of following reason....

does "has" over here means possession and not the present perfect tense ? If yes...then can you please tell how to decide when it is possession and when the same is present perfect ?
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:35 am

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Received a PM asking me to reply.

One thing to know in general about idioms: there often aren't explainable rules for idioms. The explanation is "that's the way it is; memorize it." Annoying, but... that's the way it is. :)

The relevant part of choice C says:
Diabetes has the rank of the nation's third leading cause of death.

First, FYI, "has" is not present perfect here. It is simple present. Present perfect is constructed by using both "has / have" AND the past participle of another verb. Eg, She has eaten three peaches today. "Has eaten" is present perfect. In the sentence above, we don't have a second verb - just "has." So that's simple present.

Next, If something "has the rank of X" then the main noun following that "of" should be the actual rank. "She has the rank of expert." "The dog has the rank of 4."

What noun follows in this sentence? "Diabetes has the rank of... cause." Is "cause (of death)" a rank? No - the rank is 3. Diabetes has the rank of third in the list of leading causes of death. (Totally awkward sentence, but that would work. :))

The correct answer avoids this problem by using a different structure: Diabetes ranks as X. Now, X can be the full descriptive phrase, the rank itself plus the broader description of that rank: eg, "the 4th best dog in the group."
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by sudarshankumar » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:59 am

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I have one doubt....


I think "diabetes ranks as ...." is grammatically incorrect because diabetes doesn' rank anything but it is ranked .... tense should be passive.


among all the options even i went for A but ......
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by Salman Ghaffar » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:47 am

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Would you say "Rafael Nadal ranks as the top tennis player" or "Rafael Nadal has the rank of the top tennis player"?

You would generally use the first construction.
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by tomada » Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:48 pm

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My confusion with this question involved only choices (A) and (B), because I wasn't sure if "Diabetes, together with.." should be interpreted as singular or plural.
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by Salman Ghaffar » Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:53 pm

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As a general rule, whenever you see the construction "X, along with Y,...." forget about Y and focus only on X. If X is singular, choose a singular verb; if X is plural, choose a plural verb.
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by tomada » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:24 pm

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Thank you, Salman. Can you think of any exceptions to that?

Salman Ghaffar wrote:As a general rule, whenever you see the construction "X, along with Y,...." forget about Y and focus only on X. If X is singular, choose a singular verb; if X is plural, choose a plural verb.
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by Salman Ghaffar » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:28 pm

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Nope. Works every time like a charm :)
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by tomada » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:39 pm

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That's awesome, thanks. Now, there are 3 things I can count on - death, taxes, and this construction

Salman Ghaffar wrote:Nope. Works every time like a charm :)
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by [email protected] » Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:40 pm

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Hello Everyone!

Let's take a closer look at this question and see where we can narrow down options, so we can answer this question quickly! To get started, here is the original question with the major differences between each option highlighted in orange:

Diabetes, together with its serious complications, ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only by heart disease and cancer

(a) ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only
(b) rank as the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed
(c) has the rank of the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed
(d) are the nation's third leading causes of death, surpassed only
(e) have been ranked as the nation's third leading causes of death, only surpassed

After a quick glance over the options, two major differences pop out immediately:

1. Verb Tense (ranks/rank/has the rank of/are/have been ranked)
2. surpassed only / only surpassed

Let's start with #1 on our list: verb tense. This should easily knock 2-3 options off our list quickly. The subject of this sentence is diabetes, which is a singular subject. Therefore, we need to make sure the verbs are also singular! Let's see how each option stacks up:

(a) Diabetes...ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only
(b) Diabetes...rank as the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed
(c) Diabetes...has the rank of the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed
(d) Diabetes...are the nation's third leading causes of death, surpassed only
(e) Diabetes...have been ranked as the nation's third leading causes of death, only surpassed

We can rule out options B, D, and E because they all use plural verbs, which don't match in number with our singular subject! See? Now we only have 2 options to deal with now! So, let's tackle #2 on our list: surpassed only / only surpassed.

These two phrases mean something slightly different:

surpassed only by heart disease and cancer = heart disease and cancer are the only diseases that surpassed diabetes as the leading cause of death
only surpassed by heart disease and cancer = heart disease and cancer only do one thing (surpass diabetes), suggests they don't have other functions?

It makes the most sense for this sentence to say that diabetes is surpassed only by heart disease and cancer as the leading cause of death. Therefore, we can rule out option C because it doesn't convey the correct meaning.

There is also another way to narrow these answers down:

Diabetes, together with its serious complications, ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only by heart disease and cancer

(a) ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death, surpassed only

This is CORRECT because it uses concise and clear wording to convey the correct meaning.

(c) has the rank of the nation's third leading cause of death, only surpassed

This is INCORRECT because the phrase "has the rank of" is overly wordy and unnecessary. It also uses the incorrect construction "only surpassed," which conveys the wrong overall meaning.


There you go - option A is the correct choice after all!


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