To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafoo

[jnelson0612]

Sorry ashish. Many of us share your frustration.

[ranjeet1975]

christina.susie.wong wrote:1) Why is a wrong?

in this case, you have a problem of redundancy:
a RATE can't be FAST.
* the rate can be high;
* the increase itself can be fast.
similarly,
a height can't be tall (a person can be tall, or a height can be greater than...)
a bank account can't be rich (a person can be rich, or a bank account can contain a large amount of money)
etc.

lest you think this is just a matter of excessive nitpicking on our part, this difference is corroborated by several official problems.

I can't understand the redundancy in A.

Sorry Ron but don't mind and please answer.

[RonPurewal]

I can't understand the redundancy in A.

Sorry Ron but don't mind and please answer.

my explanation is in the part that you quoted, so please say what you didn't understand from that part (or else i would just wind up basically repeating the part you quoted).

the short version is:
* it would be correct to say that the fish are growing fast, because that's what is actually happening.
* it would be correct to say that the rate is high, because that's literally true.
* it would be incorrect to say that the rate is fast, because it's not true -- rates themselves don't have speeds.

if you still don't understand this, and/or you don't understand the other examples that i provided there, then please say specifically why you don't understand them; else we are at a standstill here. thanks.

[andspeed2]

1) Why is a wrong?

in this case, you have a problem of redundancy:
a RATE can't be FAST.
* the rate can be high;
* the increase itself can be fast.
similarly,
a height can't be tall (a person can be tall, or a height can be greater than...)
a bank account can't be rich (a person can be rich, or a bank account can contain a large amount of money)
etc.

Hi Ron,

So is it wrong to say "The machine produces coffee at a faster rate" ? I thought there was nothing wrong in this sentence.

The reason I am asking this is I have heard lot of people using the term "faster rate" ( especially tv sports commentators).

Thanks in advance.

[truongnudieulinh]

Ron, you said "a RATE can't be FAST". However, I think this rule is just applied to "unemployment rate" or "divorce rate" ("rate" means a measurement of the number of times sth happens or exists during a particular period, Oxford dictionary). Because "growth rate" means speed, it can be fast (I have checked Oxford Collocation).

saying that "a speed is fast" would be wrong as well, for the same reason.

[RonPurewal]

weird ... i think i may have hit "edit" instead of "quote" in response to the last post.

oops -- sorry ):
that post is gone, because i accidentally "edited" it with my response!

fortunately, the part to which i'm responding is quoted, so that part remains.

[patil.ambar]

Agreed . I got this one right too .
However , I want to know what is wrong with E ?

E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment cut

With their feed allotment cut ?
I have observed the With clause many a times across various SCs. And majority of the time they are wrong . And I don't know why .

Ron ,
Can you please shed more light ?

[saptadeepc]

Agreed . I got this one right too .
However , I want to know what is wrong with E ?

E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment cut

With their feed allotment cut ?
I have observed the With clause many a times across various SCs. And majority of the time they are wrong . And I don't know why .

Ron ,
Can you please shed more light ?

cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets

1st issue parallelism. Cutting is parallel to raising.
2nd D is preferred because E brings in passive voice ( which is not a deal breaker ( as Ron says ) but not preferable to a sentence with an active voice )

[RonPurewal]

With their feed allotment cut ?
I have observed the With clause many a times across various SCs. And majority of the time they are wrong . And I don't know why .

that's not a clause; there's no verb (this instance of "cut" is a past participle).

one reason why this particular instance is incorrect is that it has the problem discussed in the following thread:
post26678.html#p26678

[densoson2005]

With their feed allotment cut ?
I have observed the With clause many a times across various SCs. And majority of the time they are wrong . And I don't know why .

that's not a clause; there's no verb (this instance of "cut" is a past participle).

one reason why this particular instance is incorrect is that it has the problem discussed in the following thread:
post26678.html#p26678

Hi Ron,
I find your tips very useful for person, like me, who has many weaknesses in SC. However, Can you in person answer the question posted above by Patil.? I have the same question and I have search in the forum, but I still have got the answer!

Thanks

[jlucero]

With their feed allotment cut ?
I have observed the With clause many a times across various SCs. And majority of the time they are wrong . And I don't know why .

that's not a clause; there's no verb (this instance of "cut" is a past participle).

one reason why this particular instance is incorrect is that it has the problem discussed in the following thread:
post26678.html#p26678

Hi Ron,
I find your tips very useful for person, like me, who has many weaknesses in SC. However, Can you in person answer the question posted above by Patil.? I have the same question and I have search in the forum, but I still have got the answer!

Thanks

One of the big rules with prepositional phrases is that they can't include verbs. "With" is a preposition, so when you see a noun and a verb in the prepositional phrase, it must be wrong. That's what the link above (Ron's first posting) explains in much more detail.

[HansenZ727]

Hi Ron,

Is the meaning the only problem with answer A)? is there also a parallelism problem? I am not sure if "as fast as" is a parallelism maker.

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

it's a comparison structure. generally, in comparison structures, you're more likely to face issues of meaning than of mechanics (although you could see either, or even both).

[KaushikR796]

Hi Ron,

Hope you are doing well.

I was able to filter out the other options to reach options D and E but i don't understand why D is a better option than E.
Is E grammatically correct? Is yes then why is it a worse option that E?

I have some other questions as well.
Are , preposition modifers adverbial modifiers only? Can a prepositional modifer at the beginning of the sentence act as both a noun and an adverbial modifier?

Thanking you
Regards,

[RonPurewal]

the easiest way to make that decision is just basic parallelism.
cutting || raising

__

the construction "...with their allotment cut..." is also problematic by itself, too, because there's no indication of WHO is cutting the feed allotment.
moreover, this construction implies that the suppliers AREN'T doing this (since that would just use comma + __ing, as in the correct answer).