SC : Humphry Davy

[tim]

as i've already mentioned, B sounds like we're critiquing two things: chemistry and an envisioning..

[Suapplle]

Hi, instructors, sorry to bump up an old thread, in choice B, in the official explanation, "critique and his envisioning are not parallel", why they are not parallel? "critique" is an action verb, "his envisioning of ......" is a complex gerund, action verb and complex gerund can be parallel. maybe I am wrong, please clarify, thank you very much!

[RonPurewal]

Hi, instructors, sorry to bump up an old thread, in choice B, in the official explanation, "critique and his envisioning are not parallel", why they are not parallel? "critique" is an action verb, "his envisioning of ......" is a complex gerund, action verb and complex gerund can be parallel. maybe I am wrong, please clarify, thank you very much!

I don't have any idea what "complex gerund" means, so I will sidestep that part of the discussion.

Parallelism is a RELATIVE decision"”a "beauty contest".

What you're doing"”trying to look at an individual choice and judge whether it's "parallel""”is needlessly fraught.
Just compare.

* a critique ... a vision
* a critique ... his envisioning

There's a very clear winner and a very clear loser here.

Don't make this harder than it is.

[Suapplle]

Hi, instructors, sorry to bump up an old thread, in choice B, in the official explanation, "critique and his envisioning are not parallel", why they are not parallel? "critique" is an action verb, "his envisioning of ......" is a complex gerund, action verb and complex gerund can be parallel. maybe I am wrong, please clarify, thank you very much!

I don't have any idea what "complex gerund" means, so I will sidestep that part of the discussion.

Parallelism is a RELATIVE decision"”a "beauty contest".

What you're doing"”trying to look at an individual choice and judge whether it's "parallel""”is needlessly fraught.
Just compare.

* a critique ... a vision
* a critique ... his envisioning

There's a very clear winner and a very clear loser here.

Don't make this harder than it is.

Hi,Ron,thanks for your reply, got it^_^

[cheeseburst]

Hello,


Is 'his' in choice E ambiguous? Since we have 'his own', isn't 'his' referring to Davy? As in this example: "After the agreement surfaced, the commission dissolved itself."

I understand that in B, 'his' can refer to either Davy or Boyle.

Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

Hello,


Is 'his' in choice E ambiguous? Since we have 'his own', isn't 'his' referring to Davy? As in this example: "After the agreement surfaced, the commission dissolved itself."

I understand that in B, 'his' can refer to either Davy or Boyle.

Thanks.

The appearance of "Davy", directly afterward, actually suggests that "his" = Boyle's. So, this pronoun is pretty much wrong.

Remember not to sweat "pronoun ambiguity"; it has never been dispositive in an official problem. If you're taking the actual test and you think it's an issue, try to find the more concrete problem from which it's successfully distracting you!

[cheeseburst]

Hello,


Is 'his' in choice E ambiguous? Since we have 'his own', isn't 'his' referring to Davy? As in this example: "After the agreement surfaced, the commission dissolved itself."

I understand that in B, 'his' can refer to either Davy or Boyle.

Thanks.

The appearance of "Davy", directly afterward, actually suggests that "his" = Boyle's. So, this pronoun is pretty much wrong.

Remember not to sweat "pronoun ambiguity"; it has never been dispositive in an official problem. If you're taking the actual test and you think it's an issue, try to find the more concrete problem from which it's successfully distracting you!

Thanks for the reply.

Please enlighten me on the usage of "own" as in "her own", "their own" etc. Does it work the same way as "herself", "themselves" etc? I mean "to intensify a noun" as the MGMAT SC guide puts it.

[RonPurewal]

"Intensify a noun" is actually a pretty good description.
In terms of grammar, I don't think "own" changes anything at all. It's just a way of adding emphasis.
This is a style thing"”i.e., not an issue of grammar or of objective meaning"”so it's irrelevant to the GMAT. (You just have to know that it's a thing"”i.e., that it's an acceptable construction"”so that you don't want to eliminate it if you come across it in a problem.)

E.g.,
Everyone else flew here and rented a car, but Kyle drove his own car.
You could just write "Kyle drove his car" here, but "his own" makes the contrast easier to see right away.

[JaneC643]

Hi, Ron,

Refer to this URL
http://www.beatthegmat.com/sc-with-surf ... tml#209928
I realize the structure of this sentence belongs to "comma+abstract noun" just as what you mentioned in the URL. "a critique" is supposed to refer back to the whole idea of preceding clause. However, apparently, it refers to the preceding noun "Essay on Heat and Light". So it looks like contrary to your statement unless we think that "a critique" is a concrete noun.
Similarly, the #118 of og12 is one kind of this structure. I also think that "phenomenon" is an abstract noun that is supposed to modifying the preceding clause, but it modifies the preceding noun.

Furthermore, this structure is appositive modifier, which is used a lot in sc problems. Am I right?

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Best regards,
Jane

[RonPurewal]

There's really no point in drawing that distinction (abstract vs. concrete noun). All you need to know is the following:
• This kind of modifier can describe the preceding noun.
• It can also describe the entire preceding sentence/clause/action.
• If one of these assignments reflects the intended meaning (= agrees with common sense), then the modifier is fine.

[RonPurewal]

What you're seeing in that post, by the way, is my own thought process. I'd never actually thought about that issue before, so I thought up a bunch of examples and then wrote about whatever came to mind.

First attempts at explanation are almost always more complicated than they have to be.

[RonPurewal]

Hi, Ron,

Refer to this URL
http://www.beatthegmat.com/sc-with-surf ... tml#209928

I went and edited that post. Thanks for the link.

[HemantR606]

Hi Ron,

I have eliminated all the wrong answer choices for this question and picked the first choice, but I was not completely satisfied with the correct answer choice because of the use of 'as well as' in the first choice.

I have gone through some online grammar resources and found that 'as well as' cannot always replace 'and' and that when we use 'as well as', the second part, which the 'as well as' introduced must be a fact that the reader already knows. There are also some guidelines on the usage with verbs which are not relevant in this question.

I was unable to find any resource that provided a clear cut explanation.

Can you please provide some GMAT specific rules governing when to use "as well as" and when to use "and"?


------------------
Thanks,
Hemant

[RonPurewal]

when we use 'as well as', the second part, which the 'as well as' introduced must be a fact that the reader already knows.

^^ not necessarily.
this is one rhetorically useful usage of "as well as", but it's not obligatory. (if my friend says "My new girlfriend is a writer as well as a dancer", he is not necessarily implying that i know either thing--or in fact that i know anything about her at all, or even that she exists).

[RonPurewal]

in any case, the name of the game is "keep it simple".

let's keep it simple:

1/
in a specific construction that actually requires "and", "as well as" is wrong.
e.g.,
X, Y, and Z (can't say "x, y, as well as z")
both X and Y (can't say "both x as well as y")

those are actually the only two relevant constructions i can conjure up at the moment.

2/
in any other circumstance, the distinction is there purely to distract you.
(as in this problem)
ignore it, and go find a more fundamental issue; there will DEFINITELY be one.