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lemonperb
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Re: SC:GMATp:Scientists say that each of the photographs

by lemonperb Wed Jun 18, 2014 7:41 pm

RonPurewal Wrote:That's "to which".
"Extent" is unrelated to "to". Two different constructions that just happen to occur in sequence.

This can happen in lots and lots of ways"”basically, anything ending with "extent" + anything starting with "to".
E.g., [i]Jon actually quit using drugs because Melanie was worried. I never thought he would change his behavior to such an extent to make her happy.

(Here, "which" = "the extent".)


Thanks for your excellent explanation Ron!
RonPurewal
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Re: SC:GMATp:Scientists say that each of the photographs

by RonPurewal Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:57 pm

You're welcome.
CrystalSpringston
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Re: SC:GMATp:Scientists say that each of the photographs

by CrystalSpringston Mon Nov 02, 2015 12:31 pm

HI Expert,
can we replace extent to which with to which extent in below sentence?
But we seldom realize the extent to which maths has invaded every corner of our lives.

Thank you!
RonPurewal
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Re: SC:GMATp:Scientists say that each of the photographs

by RonPurewal Thu Nov 05, 2015 8:10 am

CrystalSpringston Wrote:HI Expert,
can we replace extent to which with to which extent in below sentence?
But we seldom realize the extent to which maths has invaded every corner of our lives.

Thank you!


no.
RAHULS852
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Re: SC:GMATp:Scientists say that each of the photographs

by RAHULS852 Thu Mar 28, 2019 3:39 pm

Hi Ron/ Manhattan expert,

Can I understand the meaning of option D in a different way :

"the overwhelming extent of the flooding" is parallel to "the degree to which rocks were scattered"
the degree to which rocks were scattered = degree of scattering .
("extent of the flooding" parallel to "degree of scattering")
So Can I remove option B & C where "extent of the floods" is different from "extent of the flooding" and not parallel to "the degree to which rocks were scattered".

Regards,
Rahul SIngh
Sage Pearce-Higgins
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Re: SC:GMATp:Scientists say that each of the photographs

by Sage Pearce-Higgins Mon Apr 01, 2019 6:35 am

I would be cautious in your analysis here. First, I agree that "the overwhelming extent of the flooding" is parallel to "the degree to which rocks were scattered". These are two events that the photographs indicate, both nouns ('extent' and 'degree') and the construction is fine. However, there is a trap in that the phrases don't use exactly the same type of words. Some students tend to overdo parallelism and might reject a perfectly good parallel construction such as that found in answer D.

What I would encourage you to avoid is this:
the degree to which rocks were scattered = degree of scattering

Simply interpreting a phrase as another phrase is risky. The construction was parallel to begin with; we didn't need to repeat 'of'.

Answer B is indeed not parallel, but for different reasons. The first element has a verb ('was'), but the second doesn't. We'd need something like '...indicate that A is B and [that] C is D'. (We might exclude 'that', depending on how clear the meaning was.)

Answer C, on the other hand, is borderline for me. Although D sounds better to me, I'm not sure I can differentiate the nuance of meaning between 'extent of floods' and 'extent of flooding', but I'm pretty sure that GMAT isn't expecting me to either.