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Confusing Sentences

by Cheers123 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:53 am
Hi,

These are correct sentences from Kaplan. Can someone please explain these?

1. Children who watch a great deal of television whose families have a history of near sightedness will probably require glasses sooner than their peers who are not predisposed to myopia in these ways.

Is no conjunction required before 'whose'?

2. San Franciscans of the 1890s mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within twenty years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.

Use of will and had together is confusing here.

TIA,
Charu
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by Frankenstein » Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:21 am
Hi,
(1)Use of 'and' before 'whose' definitely makes it flawless. Probably, in that question the other options are worse.

(2)IMO, 'will had' is incorrect. Are you sure that is the OA ?
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by Cheers123 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:47 am
1) I believe 'and' is required here. I guess it was a misprint.
2) Yes, it is the OA as per Kaplan CD.
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:59 am
Hey guys,

Good question on that second one. Just to clarify, they're using the word "will" there as a noun, kind of like in the expression:

Where there's a will there's a way.

"Will" here means "strong desire or commitment" or something to that extent. You could pretty closely replace it with "determination" and the sentence would read:

...yet within twenty years a strong municipal determination had made this boast a reality.

The verb phrase is "had made", the noun of which is "will" (or "determination").


One other thought here - this is where those experimental, unscored questions on the official GMAT might play a role. I'd imagine that most American students would look at this one and pretty quickly see "will" as a noun, but if the data that GMAC collects were to show that nonnative English speakers miss this question at a disproportionately high rate compared to how they perform on other questions of similar overall difficulty, they'd investigate and they may need to change it or remove it because "will" is confusing. I don't know how they'd judge it in this particular case, but they do monitor for that kind of thing so rest assured that you'll be tested fairly!
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by Frankenstein » Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:14 am
Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Hey guys,

Good question on that second one. Just to clarify, they're using the word "will" there as a noun, kind of like in the expression:

Where there's a will there's a way.

"Will" here means "strong desire or commitment" or something to that extent. You could pretty closely replace it with "determination" and the sentence would read:

...yet within twenty years a strong municipal determination had made this boast a reality.

The verb phrase is "had made", the noun of which is "will" (or "determination").


One other thought here - this is where those experimental, unscored questions on the official GMAT might play a role. I'd imagine that most American students would look at this one and pretty quickly see "will" as a noun, but if the data that GMAC collects were to show that nonnative English speakers miss this question at a disproportionately high rate compared to how they perform on other questions of similar overall difficulty, they'd investigate and they may need to change it or remove it because "will" is confusing. I don't know how they'd judge it in this particular case, but they do monitor for that kind of thing so rest assured that you'll be tested fairly!
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your response. Completely forgot about the usage of "will" as noun. So, was struggling to understand the sentence as a whole. Any comments on the first one?
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Thu Jun 02, 2011 12:50 pm
Great - glad that helped!

On that first one, like you said there's almost certainly an "and" or an "or" in the official (or intended) version that makes it correct. As it is, it doesn't work - as written it makes it sound like the televisions have families with nearsightedness, and obviously that's illogical. So the way that you and Cheers both stated it - you're looking for a connector like "and" or "or" - is perfect!

Also, on that second one, I should also mention: As a resident of Los Angeles...take that, 19th century San Franciscans! World class city!
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by atulmangal » Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:59 pm
Posting this question as in the first post of this thread, an example regarding the usage of WHOSE is discussed.

Source: Knewton prep

The strength of the political advertisement lies not in the candidate's speech but in the portrayal of stories of daily life in the city with positive embellishments that inspire a sense of honor and dignity within the average viewer.


(A) portrayal of stories of daily life in the city with positive embellishments that

(B) fact that it portrays stories of daily life in the city as having positive embellishments that

(C) fact that it portrays stories of daily life in the city, whose positive embellishments

(D) portrayal of stories of daily life in the city, which have positive embellishments and thus

(E) portrayal of stories of daily life in the city, whose positive embellishments

My question is What "WHOSE" in Op E is modifying "city" or "stories"
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by KapTeacherEli » Thu Jun 02, 2011 6:09 pm
Cheers123 wrote:Hi,

These are correct sentences from Kaplan. Can someone please explain these?

1. Children who watch a great deal of television whose families have a history of near sightedness will probably require glasses sooner than their peers who are not predisposed to myopia in these ways.

Is no conjunction required before 'whose'?

2. San Franciscans of the 1890s mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within twenty years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.

Use of will and had together is confusing here.

TIA,
Charu
Hi Charu,

Looks like Brian beat me to it, and he's right on both counts. The second sentence uses "will" as a noun, and the first sentence has a typo. Can you PM me the edition of the book and the page number that has this? I want to make sure we are able to fix it ASAP (if we haven't done so already!)

Thanks!
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

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by Cheers123 » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:56 am
Brian@VeritasPrep wrote: I'd imagine that most American students would look at this one and pretty quickly see "will" as a noun
I agree with that. It is not that I am not aware of the usage of 'will' as 'strong desire' but I just could not see it as a noun when I read it. No wonder, Verbal is the Achilles' heel for most non native speakers of English.

@Eli
PMed you.
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by atulmangal » Fri Jun 17, 2011 6:24 pm
Hi guys, the complete question is this one:


San Franciscans of the 1890's mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
1. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
2. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will made this boast a reality.
3. yet a powerful municipal within 20 years will make this boast a reality.
4. yet this boast had become a reality within 20 years because of a powerful will municipally
5. yet within 20 years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality.

My question is, why we need past perfect here??? why simple past as in Op B is not okay??? we are talking about something that happened within 20 years right so i think past tense is okay...seems like m missing something. please clear
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by Frankenstein » Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:22 pm
atulmangal wrote:Hi guys, the complete question is this one:


San Franciscans of the 1890's mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
1. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
2. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will made this boast a reality.
3. yet a powerful municipal within 20 years will make this boast a reality.
4. yet this boast had become a reality within 20 years because of a powerful will municipally
5. yet within 20 years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality.

My question is, why we need past perfect here??? why simple past as in Op B is not okay??? we are talking about something that happened within 20 years right so i think past tense is okay...seems like m missing something. please clear
Hi,
Refer to your post at:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mgmt-verb-te ... tml#376307
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by atulmangal » Fri Jun 17, 2011 9:36 pm
Frankenstein wrote:
atulmangal wrote:Hi guys, the complete question is this one:


San Franciscans of the 1890's mocked the claim that declared Los Angeles a world city, yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
1. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will had made this boast a reality.
2. yet within 20 years a powerful municipal will made this boast a reality.
3. yet a powerful municipal within 20 years will make this boast a reality.
4. yet this boast had become a reality within 20 years because of a powerful will municipally
5. yet within 20 years a municipal will had made this boast a powerful reality.

My question is, why we need past perfect here??? why simple past as in Op B is not okay??? we are talking about something that happened within 20 years right so i think past tense is okay...seems like m missing something. please clear
Hi,
Refer to your post at:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mgmt-verb-te ... tml#376307
Hi i think both the cases are different that's why i'm still confused

if u compare "within 20 years" and " less than ten years later"

the second one reflects two time frames...1) before 10 years and 2) ten years later

hence i understand the use of past perfect over there but in this question,

"within 20 years" i believe reflects only one time frame. correct me if m wrong???
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by Frankenstein » Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:08 pm
atulmangal wrote:
Hi i think both the cases are different that's why i'm still confused

if u compare "within 20 years" and " less than ten years later"

the second one reflects two time frames...1) before 10 years and 2) ten years later

hence i understand the use of past perfect over there but in this question,

"within 20 years" i believe reflects only one time frame. correct me if m wrong???
Hi,
You could have misinterpreted 'within'. So, let's discuss about it.
'within twenty years' = 'before twenty years passed' right?.
So, even here you have 2 time frames 1) boast becoming reality 2) time finishes passing 20 years
The earlier event is the boast becoming reality. Since the boast becomes reality before that time finishes passing, past perfect should be fine.
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by atulmangal » Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:29 am
@Frankenstein

Hi, this point i guess i creating confusion:
'within twenty years' = 'before twenty years passed' right?.
I have different opinion here, i think

'within twenty years' = whatever happen in those twenty years.

see these made-up examples, all are correct

(1) In 1990, Sachin won a gold medal in swimming.

(2) By the year 1990, Sachin had won many gold medals in swimming.

Now, if u notice in first example we use simple past, as we are discussing what happened in 1990, while in second we are fixing a point at year 1990 and talking what happened before and thats why using past perfect. Now, i think that this part "within bla bla bla" is quite similar to "in bla bla bla"....see although i agree that if i apply my ear, i feel it has to be past perfect but struggling a bit to understand the same conceptually here.
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by Frankenstein » Sat Jun 18, 2011 3:43 am
atulmangal wrote:@Frankenstein

Hi, this point i guess i creating confusion:
'within twenty years' = 'before twenty years passed' right?.
I have different opinion here, i think

'within twenty years' = whatever happen in those twenty years.

see these made-up examples, all are correct

(1) In 1990, Sachin won a gold medal in swimming.

(2) By the year 1990, Sachin had won many gold medals in swimming.

Now, if u notice in first example we use simple past, as we are discussing what happened in 1990, while in second we are fixing a point at year 1990 and talking what happened before and thats why using past perfect. Now, i think that this part "within bla bla bla" is quite similar to "in bla bla bla"....see although i agree that if i apply my ear, i feel it has to be past perfect but struggling a bit to understand the same conceptually here.
Hi,
Firstly, within 20 years(period) is definitely not same as in ...(specific point of time)
'within twenty years' = whatever happened in those twenty years(bound by 20 years i.e. before the 20 years period is completed). It is doing the same role as 'By the year 1990' in your example.
Why did you use past perfect for 'By the year 1990'?
Because Sachin won some medals and then the period ended in 1990.

Similarly, boast became reality before the period of 20 years was over.
Think about this in the same way as you thought about 'By 1990'.
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