so X as to be Y ...

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lalabee: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 44; Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2008 11:44 am; Thanked: 1 times

so X as to be Y ...

by lalabee » Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:58 pm

Hello,

I'm not sure why C is incorrect ..

isnt that the idiom "so X as to be Y ... " ??

what should be X and what should be Y ?

i think X has to be an adjective, while Y has to be a noun .. am i right on this?

kindly explain and thanks in advance.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:58 pm

TkNeo: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 96; Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:21 am; Thanked: 5 times

Re: so X as to be Y ...

by TkNeo » Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:23 am

lalabee wrote:Hello,

I'm not sure why C is incorrect ..

isnt that the idiom "so X as to be Y ... " ??

what should be X and what should be Y ?

i think X has to be an adjective, while Y has to be a noun .. am i right on this?

kindly explain and thanks in advance.

The idiom has 2 forms
1. So X as to Y. X = adjective, Y = verb. [the weather was so hot as to threaten the crops in the field]
2. So X that Y. X = adjective

i think C is a bit too wordy, it would be correct if it said

individual colonies cooperate in a super-colony so large as to make its collective appetite a competitive threat to....

If A was something totally weird, C can still work as the correct answer. But since A has the correct idiom and is concise, you got to pick that. Hard question i say !

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