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The positivity effect refers to the tendency

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The positivity effect refers to the tendency

by simplyjat » Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:11 am
The positivity effect refers to the tendency for people to attribute the positive behavior of other people whom they like to their disposition, they attribute negative behavior to their situation.

1. to their disposition, they attribute
2. to their disposition, while attributing
3. as a result of their disposition, while attributing
4. as a result of their disposition, they attribute
5. to their disposition, while they tend to attribute

OA 2
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by amitansu » Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:19 am
5) is my pick.

Ready to accept whtsoever is the correct answer.(of course with explanation :-)
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Re: The positivity effect refers to the tendency

by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:54 am
simplyjat wrote:The positivity effect refers to the tendency for people to attribute the positive behavior of other people whom they like to their disposition, they attribute negative behavior to their situation.

1. to their disposition, they attribute
2. to their disposition, while attributing
3. as a result of their disposition, while attributing
4. as a result of their disposition, they attribute
5. to their disposition, while they tend to attribute
Is this an OG question? "Their" appears in every answer choice, so we don't have to worry about it, but it's an ambiguous pronoun (it could refer to the first "people" or the second "people").

We have 2 independent clauses, so we need a connector after disposition: eliminate (1) and (4).

We "attribute to", so eliminate (3).

"while they tend to attribute" is unnecessary repetition of information from the first part of the comparison. It's common on the GMAT for the second half of sentences like this one to begin with a gerund ("ing" verb).

So, (2) is more concise than (5) and avoids redundancy: choose (2).
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by amitansu » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:29 pm
Ok.Learnt my lession !!

That ,gerunds are acceptable in second half of the sentence !!

I initially stood for choice '2' but gerund confused me and then i chose 5.
My personal experience says to me that, always my initial/first thought becomes correct answer but sometrimes i give it a second thought and get my answer wrong.

So if that works for me ,should i stick to my first choice (comes out of instinct of course APPLIED WITH GMAT rules !!) always !!!

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by simplyjat » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:43 pm
I came to the point where only 2 & 5 were left. And then picked 5.

Stuart
Is "attributing" a gerund or present participle?
Also why are we not following parallelism here? Basically, for me, parallelism was the deciding factor between 2 & 5.

I also remember a similar question from OG where Fungi... extending... was correct, but I am really want to master the basic concept here....
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by rey.fernandez » Wed Apr 23, 2008 9:54 pm
Attributing is a participle here, introducing a modifier. Gerunds end in -ing, but they function as nouns.

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by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:28 am
simplyjat wrote:I came to the point where only 2 & 5 were left. And then picked 5.

Stuart
Is "attributing" a gerund or present participle?
Also why are we not following parallelism here? Basically, for me, parallelism was the deciding factor between 2 & 5.

I also remember a similar question from OG where Fungi... extending... was correct, but I am really want to master the basic concept here....
You're correct - it's a participle, not a gerund. The good news (for me too!) is that we don't need to know terminology for the GMAT.

GMAC considers the use of the participle to be so much better from a style viewpoint that parallelism is overridden in these constructions.
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by simplyjat » Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:45 pm
Stuart Kovinsky wrote: GMAC considers the use of the participle to be so much better from a style viewpoint that parallelism is overridden in these constructions.
Now how to file this concept in the cabinet called brain...
when to use present participle and when to ignore parallelism ?
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