Margaret Mead, the best-known anthropologist

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Margaret Mead, the best-known anthropologist of the twentieth century, helped shape public opinion on fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, along with the relative merits of competition and cooperation.
VP: "helped shape" is correct
A. shape public opinion in such fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, along with
B. shape public opinion in such fundamentally important areas as attitudes toward children and families and
C. to shape public opinion about such fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, also about
D. the shaping of public opinion for fundamentally important areas such as attitudes toward children and families, and those toward
E. the shaping of public opinion around fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, and those of
[spoiler]OA B

The verb in OA is helped shape[/i/.I believe both helped and shape are verbs. Is it a correct construction. Will help to shape be a better construction.

Regards,
Vishal
[/spoiler]
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by GmatKiss » Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:49 pm
vishal.pathak wrote:Margaret Mead, the best-known anthropologist of the twentieth century, helped shape public opinion on fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, along with the relative merits of competition and cooperation.
VP: "helped shape" is correct
A. shape public opinion in such fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, along with
B. shape public opinion in such fundamentally important areas as attitudes toward children and families and
C. to shape public opinion about such fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, also about
D. the shaping of public opinion for fundamentally important areas such as attitudes toward children and families, and those toward
E. the shaping of public opinion around fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, and those of
[spoiler]OA B

The verb in OA is helped shape[/i/.I believe both helped and shape are verbs. Is it a correct construction. Will help to shape be a better construction.

Regards,
Vishal
[/spoiler]

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by vikram4689 » Wed Mar 14, 2012 3:38 pm
Main verb is "helped", 'shape' is part of infinitive but it is OK to remove 'to' part of infinitive in cases where the intention of sentence is NOT "X wants something from Y" OR "action of X is received by a particular noun (Y)" e.g.Vishal wants vikram to solve this question. In this case we cannot remove 'to'. However, in "Vishal helped shape the design of BTG" we can remove 'to' from "Vishal helped to shape the design of BTG"

P.S. These were my 2 cents. Experts can provide more constructive reasoning
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by pappueshwar » Wed Mar 14, 2012 7:21 pm
hi all,

why should we use "such as" here? are these considered examples?

i was of the opinion that "attitudes toward children and families, along with the relative merits of competition and cooperation. "
were nouns and hence like is needed .

let me know. thanks

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by vikram4689 » Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:26 pm
you are correct that "attitudes toward children and families, along with the relative merits of competition and cooperation. " are nouns BUT we are not comparing - point to remember AS vs LIKE is for comparison. We are giving examples, look at the sentence this way
Margaret Mead, the best-known anthropologist of the twentieth century, helped shape public opinion on fundamentally important areas such as
1. attitudes toward children and families
2. the relative merits of competition and cooperation

'along with' is equivalent to 'and' only different it creates is singular/plural usage of verbs
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