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by lunarpower » Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:06 am
3) The verbs "enters" and "slowing" are not parallel.
^^ there's no reason why they should be parallel, since they aren't in a parallel construction.
"slowing" is a modifier. modifiers NEVER have to be parallel to the stuff they modify.

if we change "entering..." to "that enters..." (but leave "slowing" alone), we get another perfectly workable sentence. the meaning is slightly different, but still eminently reasonable.
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by saurabh99 » Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:33 am
lunarpower wrote:
2) The pronoun "it" is vague.
in context, it's clear that "it" = oxygen, and oxygen is a singular noun. for the GMAT, that's good enough.

more importantly, talking about "vague pronouns" sets a bad precedent for the GMAT, which tests no such thing.
if the GMAT tests a pronoun error, that error will be black-and-white. e.g., singular pronoun vs. plural noun, or pronoun vs. something that isn't a noun.

trying to eliminate "vague pronouns" is going to lead to a very large frequency of false positives (= inadvertently eliminating the correct answer).
Hi Ron,
Rewriting the sentence with option C inserted

In an effort to reduce the number of fires started by cigarettes, a major tobacco company is test-marketing a cigarette that uses thin layers of extra paper to decrease the amount of oxygen when it enters the cigarette, thereby slowing the rate at which it burns and lowering the heat it generates.

The 'it' after the underlined portion refers to 'oxygen'.
Is my thinking correct???

Thanks,
Saurabh
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by saurabh99 » Wed Dec 24, 2014 1:34 am
lunarpower wrote:
2) The pronoun "it" is vague.
in context, it's clear that "it" = oxygen, and oxygen is a singular noun. for the GMAT, that's good enough.

more importantly, talking about "vague pronouns" sets a bad precedent for the GMAT, which tests no such thing.
if the GMAT tests a pronoun error, that error will be black-and-white. e.g., singular pronoun vs. plural noun, or pronoun vs. something that isn't a noun.

trying to eliminate "vague pronouns" is going to lead to a very large frequency of false positives (= inadvertently eliminating the correct answer).
Hi Ron,
Rewriting the sentence with option C inserted

In an effort to reduce the number of fires started by cigarettes, a major tobacco company is test-marketing a cigarette that uses thin layers of extra paper to decrease the amount of oxygen when it enters the cigarette, thereby slowing the rate at which it burns and lowering the heat it generates.

The 'it' after the underlined portion refers to 'oxygen'.
Is my thinking correct???

Thanks,
Saurabh
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by lunarpower » Wed Dec 24, 2014 2:17 am
good observation.
in the context of the original sentence, the red "it" is the cigarette itself.

that is an actual conflict (with the immediately preceding "it", which is used to refer to something else).
notice that there's no "vagueness"; the problem is that the different "it"s are unambiguously meant to refer to two precise, but different, nouns.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron en castellano
Potete chiedere domande a Ron in italiano
On peut poser des questions à Ron en français
Voit esittää kysymyksiä Ron:lle myös suomeksi

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Quand on se sent bien dans un vêtement, tout peut arriver. Un bon vêtement, c'est un passeport pour le bonheur.

Yves Saint-Laurent

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