aiming at vs. aimed at

[DakeW543]

I am having a difficult time in understanding the difference between "aiming at" and "aimed at". Can anyone tell me the difference in the following?
1. The company has followed a policy aimed at decreasing costs.
2. The company has followed a policy aiming at decreasing costs.

I also think in this scenario "aiming at" and "aimed at" can be replaced by "dedicating to" and "dedicated to" respectively. Am I correct?

Thanks in advance.

[StaceyKoprince]

Hello! Welcome to the forums. Please take a few minutes to read the forum guidelines.

This folder is only for general strategy questions, not content or specific test problems. Check out the content / problem folders and post in the relevant folder depending upon the source of the problem or material you want to post (and make sure to follow the rules about banned sources). For example, this material would be posted in the General Verbal folder.

I'll give you a quick response here; please go to the General Verbal folder if you want to discuss in more depth.

These are idioms...and idioms are annoying. They aren't really rules in the sense of having a logical reason. You're just supposed to memorize the usage.

These are correct:
Her efforts are aimed at increasing her GMAT score.
She is aiming for a specific result.
She is aiming at a specific target. (An actual, physical target—e.g., she's aiming her arrow at the target.)
She is aiming to increase her GMAT score. (person is aiming to VERB)

These are not:
Her efforts are aiming at increasing her GMAT score.
She is aiming to a specific result.
She is aiming at a specific result. ("aiming at" is usually referring to a physical thing)
She is aiming at increasing her GMAT score.

As I said, idioms are pretty much a "memorize this" situation. That's really annoying so I don't recommend spending a ton of time on idioms unless they are *very* common and very likely to be seen on the exam. You may or may not see this one, and SC questions typically give you multiple errors in the same problem...so I would concentrate on something else.

(Re: dedicated / dedicating—you can substitute "dedicated to" but not "dedicating to." Again...idioms. )