Placement/choice of conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs

Sentence A: Sergei chose to buy a house because of the increase in both the number of houses on the market and the number of his friends who owned their own homes.

Sentence B: Sergei chose to buy a house because of both the increase in the number of houses on the market and the number of his friends who owned their own homes.

Both sentences feature Sergei buying a house because of the number of houses on the market and the number of his friends who owned their own homes, but in Sentence A, both of those numbers are going up, while in Sentence B, only the number of houses is increasing. (I tried to come up with a sentence that had a more amusing shift in sense; I will envy you a little if you are able to come up with one.

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Note that the choice of conjunction can make a significant difference:

Phillip decided that for his birthday, he would eat macaroni, cheese, beans, rice, apple pie, and ice cream for dinner.

A. macaroni, cheese, beans, rice, apple pie, and ice cream

B. macaroni and cheese, beans and rice, or apple pie with ice cream

C. macaroni and cheese, beans and rice, and apple pie with ice cream

D. macaroni or cheese, beans or rice, or apple pie with ice cream

E. macaroni or cheese, beans or rice, apple pie, and ice cream

. . . as does the placement of some adverbs, such as the limiting adverb only:

It only seemed that the boxer touched his opponent’s chin when he scored the knockout punch.

A. only seemed that the boxer touched his opponent’s chin when he scored the

B. seemed that only the boxer touched his opponent’s chin when he scored the

C. seemed that the boxer only touched his opponent’s chin when he scored the

D. seemed that the boxer touched only his opponent’s chin when he scored the

E. seemed that the boxer touched his opponent’s chin when he scored the only

Answers next time!

Check out the other articles in this series:

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 1)

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 2)

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 3)

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 4)

The questions consist of either a set of yes/no statements, or multiple-choice questions. Information from more than one tab will be required to answer the questions, but the same tab can be used for more than one question. According to GMAC, this question type is designed to mimic “the case study approach used by many management programs” and tests the “ability to integrate different types of information…from different sources.” Let’s take a look at a sample Multi-Source Reasoning question from Grockit’s question bank to see how we can approach this new question-type!

Article 1

News article in an environmental publication

July 19 – If current trends continue, fossil fuels will be exhausted by 2052. Industry and transportation and the inability of governments to put stricter emissions regulations in place means that there will be a greater demand for alternative energy sources. Additionally, recent concerns about the high-cost of implementing new systems such as public transportation in industrialized areas has led many voters to actually strike down propositions to subsidize alternative fuel research.

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Article 2

Interview with a well-known scientist

August 3 – Dr. Lisa Goodman, one of the team of architects behind several new battery-operated commercial vehicles, has criticized the government’s unwillingness to aggressively lobby voters to pass measures to reduce fossil fuel usage. She suggests that without a significant reduction in per-person fossil fuel consumption, the rate of global warming could soon increase threefold.

“I know that voters continue to reject costly measures to reduce widespread fossil fuel consumption such as large-scale public transportation projects, and that politicians are naturally going to avoid stumping for unpopular policies. However, if something isn’t done soon, by 2055, a barrel of gasoline may become a luxury that only the rich can afford.”

Article 3

Article from a weekly news magazine

August 29 – The price of crude oil has jumped by 500% over the last decade as a decrease in supply has met with an increased demand. This demand has encouraged many new oil wells to launch in the Gulf of Mexico, and some American environmental groups have expressed concern that certain oil companies are not following the safest procedures, emphasizing that the companies are more concerned with the speed of extraction than the well-being of the ecosystem. Some scientists in the Gulf have called for an increase in safety regulations for oil companies drilling off the coast, but the companies warn that this may dramatically increase the cost of crude oil, at a time when many Americans are already struggling to pay the increased price.

QUESTION #1: Consider each of the following statements. Does the information in the three articles support the inference as stated?

• Politicians usually do not agree with one another on issues of global warming and fossil fuel consumption.
• An increase in worldwide demand for crude oil has made the oil companies safety standards’ fall.
• Dr. Goodman would likely support a public referendum on whether to require the oil companies to have better safety and ecological regulations.
• The actions of the oil companies have led some voters to reject measures it considers costly.

The answer is No for the first statement. The statement in question is not necessarily true, as we do not know what politicians “usually’ do, and therefore this is not a valid conclusion just based on the information provided.

The answer is No for the second statement. This is not a correct cause/effect statement. There is nothing to support a direct link between the demand for oil and the oil companies’ safety standards. Remember that there is no evidence given that the safety standards have indeed fallen.

The answer is No for the third statement. In Article 2, Dr. Goodman is shown to have little faith in the public as the solution to the global warming issue, since the public has continually shot down measures it considered “costly.”

The answer is No for the fourth statement. No direct correlation is made between the actions of the oil companies and the votes cast by the public. Be careful not the conflate information from two separate articles.

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In case you missed it or forgot, this was the question:

A group of well-regarded economists has recently published projected figures for the economy next year, which predict that if interest rates remain at their current level, lending should continue to increase as slowly as it has this year.

A. if interest rates remain at their current level, lending should continue to increase

B. when interest rates remain at their current level, lending can continue its increasing

C. if interest rates remain at their current level, lending continues to increase

D. if interest rates remain at their current level, lending will continue to increase

E. if interest rates remain at their current level, lending could continue to increase

I tried to make it a little tricky by having the sentence involve a study (since I had mentioned that statements of general truth with tense in present/present are often attached to studies), but this one is a straightforward prediction.

A. Incorrect. It is fine grammatically, but there is no reason to put a modal “should” in the second half of the condition. It’s already a prediction about the future, a prediction which may not come to pass; adding even more uncertainty to the “then” portion is not needed to convey that.

B. Incorrect. I suppose this was mean of me; by changing the beginning and end of one answer choice, I had an excuse to increase the length of the underlined portion and make you read more for every answer choice. This choice is technically correct as well, but I think it would only be a strange alternate universe where the GMAT wanted you to use phrases like “can continue its increasing.”

C. Incorrect. This one is the present/present tense trap that I mentioned, which is entirely grammatically correct and appropriate for studies. Here, though, the meaning is changed, claiming that WHENEVER interest rates remain at their current level, lending will increase at some (slow) rate. While a study could show that, it would not come in the form of a prediction.

D. Correct. Here we have a simple present for the static interest rates and a simple future for the predicted effect.

E. Incorrect. As with Choice A, the modal “could” is grammatically and even contextually plausible, but there is no reason to add this additional uncertainty to the prediction.

Next time: word placement!

Check out the other articles in this series:

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 1)

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 2)

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 3)

What are transition words? Transitions are words or phrases that connect ideas. They are used by writers to assist the reader in understanding shifts in thought between ideas. They also reveal the relationship between ideas presented in an essay, and they reveal the role a paragraph plays with the rest of the essay. You’ve probably noticed a lot of Transition words in the Reading Comp passages in the GMAT Verbal section without even realizing it! This table provides an overview of most of the common types of Transitions!

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Even if you’re planning to use a template for your AWA essay,  you can still practice beefing up your transitions. Why use “in conclusion” when “thus” will do just as well? Mix it up! You don’t want to come across pedantic (and too much creativity could lead the E-rater to misinterpret your meaning), but sometimes reaching for a more creative word can impress. If you are just beginning to use transitions, it’s better to use simpler idiomatic links like “firstly…” and “secondly…” when you set up a transition. But as you improve your AWA skills, try to diversify.

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Conditional statements

If you are very hungry, you eat too much food.

If you are very hungry, you may eat too much food.

If you are very hungry, you will eat too much food.

If you are very hungry, you should eat too much food.

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Conditional statements in English have many different combinations of tenses and moods, which could be the subject of a whole series of blog posts on its own. Instead, I’ve chosen a subset of conditions here, each with a slightly different verb in the “then” clause.

If you are hungry, you eat too much food. This form is common enough, usually appearing in sentences announcing the result of a study or report (A recent Harvard Medical School study has conclusively shown that if you do not eat, you die). In English, when both parts of the condition are in the simple present tense, it refers to a statement of general truth; whenever the first thing happens, the second thing happens (When I get caught in the rain, I get wet).

If you are very hungry, you may eat too much food. By introducing the modal auxiliary verb may, we have added uncertainty, possibility, or permission to the sentence; eating too much food is something that you will not certainly do in all circumstances. It could either indicate one of several options (We may go to the festival tomorrow) or that permission has been granted (You may stay in my home for as long as you like).

If you are very hungry, you will eat too much food. In exchanging the present tense for the future tense in the “then” portion, we have changed our statement of general truth into a specific prediction about the future: if X is the case, Y will certainly happen (If it is raining right now, you will be soaked by the time you reach your car).

If you are very hungry, you should eat too much food. Finally, by putting in the modal auxiliary verb should, we have made overeating an obligation, something that is right or good (If you see your boss at lunch time, you should ask for some vacation time this summer).  Though it is beyond the scope of a test preparation blog, I would like to add that overeating is not right or good.

Here’s one for you to try:

A group of well-regarded economists has recently published projected figures for the economy next year, which predict that if interest rates remain at their current level, lending should continue to increase as slowly as it has this year.

A. if interest rates remain at their current level, lending should continue to increase

B. when interest rates remain at their current level, lending can continue their increasing

C. if interest rates remain at their current level, lending continues to increase

D. if interest rates remain at their current level, lending will continue to increase

E. if interest rates remain at their current level, lending could continue to increase

Answer next time!

Check out the other articles in this series:

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 1)

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 2)

Below is a sample question that GMAC has provided at MBA.com to familiarize students with the format of this new question-type. You can see that for this question, you would click one circle to bubble in a choice for Organization A’s column, and then separately click for Organization B’s column. The choices are made independently, and both must be correct to receive credit for the question. To try out this question and see the correct answer go here.

Two-Part analysis questions measure your ability to solve complex problems. This is designed to mimic complex, multi-part, real-world problems faced by MBA students. MBA.com further describes the Two-Part format as lending “itself to a wide range of content and skills measured, including the ability to evaluate trade-offs, solve simultaneous equations, and discern relationships between two entities.” Because of this, your acquired skills in solving complex algebra and in discerning harder word problems will be essential skills to solve Two-Part Analysis questions.

The question is called “Two-Part Analysis” because of the multiple components. They may be independent or dependent on each other. These questions commonly ask about simultaneous equations, variables, rates, or differing opinions. They may focus solely on Quantitative concepts, or may include aspects of Verbal such as inference and reading comprehension.

To practice for this new question type before the June 2012 launch, you can create a Custom Game in the Grockit GMAT lobby and work on the questions involving Word Problems, Linear Equations, Rates and Work, and other advanced algebra concepts. As you practice your Reading Comprehension skills in the Grockit GMAT Verbal games, you will also be preparing for Two-Part Analysis!

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Last time, I gave you this question:

On her way to the store, Priya decided to purchase a personal organizer, a new computer with a wireless network card, and a barking toy robot dog that would make her life easier, she decided.

A. and a barking toy robot dog that would make her life easier, she decided.

B. and a barking toy robot dog; that would make would make her life easier, she decided.

C. and a barking toy robot dog that would make her life easier; she decided.

D. and a barking toy robot dog making her life easier, she decided.

E. and, deciding that would make her life easier, a barking toy robot dog.

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A. Incorrect. While grammatically correct, the placement of that suggests that the barking toy would make her life easier, when it makes more sense for it to be either the whole purchase or just the non-toy portions.

B. Correct. By putting that into a new independent clause, it can make a stronger claim to modify the preceding clause. You can still argue that that refers back to the toy, but the connection is not as strong as it is in the other sentences.

C.  Incorrect. Though this one is technically grammatically correct, that modifies the toy again, and “she decided” is a very uninformative independent clause.

D.  Incorrect. Placing the present participle making directly next to the toy dog suggests it is the barking toy making her life easier, which isn’t likely (has anyone’s life ever been made easier by a barking toy dog?).

E. Incorrect. The placement of and before the deciding suggests they are part of the same unit: the final item in her list of purchases. This also suggests the toy will make her life easier.

I don’t believe you’ll see a question exactly like this on the GMAT; that’s not the point. The idea here is to show how the placement of punctuation can affect how you interpret certain parts of sentences. Next time, we’ll look at conditional statements!

Check out the other articles in this series:

More Than Just Grammar:  The Search for Meaning in the New SC (Part 1)

1. Assuming that characteristics of a group apply to each member of that group
2. Assuming that a certain condition is necessary for a certain outcome
3. Drawing a weak analogy between two things
4. Confusing a cause-effect relationship with a correlation (famously known as post hoc ergo propter hoc, i.e. correlation does not imply causation)
5. Relying on inappropriate or potentially unrepresentative statistics
6. Relying on biased or tainted data (methods for collecting data must be unbiased and the poll responses must be credible)

Most of the arguments contain three or four of these flaws, making your body paragraph organization pretty simple. Becoming familiar with these flaws and how to spot them is the first step to writing a quality Argument Task. Let’s look at these flaws in a little more depth:

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1. The Member vs. Group Fallacy: It is pretty unrealistic to describe a group and then expect that every single member fulfills that characteristic. You can remember this fallacy by thinking about stereotypes. We generally think of stereotypes as harmful because they unfairly limit a certain group to one definable characteristic that is often founded on little to no evidence. In order to avoid the member-group fallacy, the argument should clearly state that a member is a representative of the group as a whole; most of the time, however, it won’t.

2. The Necessary Condition Assumption: The speaker of an argument may assume that a certain course of action is necessary or sufficient to achieve a result. The “necessary” line of reasoning is particularly weak if the speaker does not provide evidence that no other means of achieving the same result is possible. For example, a superintendent of a school argues that adopting a certain marketed reading program is necessary–i.e. the only means–to increase reading skills of students.

The “sufficient” line of reasoning is weak if the speaker fails to provide evidence that the proposed course of action would be sufficient to bring about the desired result by itself. In the above example, the superintendent may not have shown that the reading program by itself is enough to raise reading levels. There are other factors involved in this proposed outcome: preparedness of teachers and attentiveness of students.

3. Weak Analogies: The speaker may come to a conclusion about one thing on the basis of another thing. For example, if the manager of a business, say a trading card shop, may find that a big competitor in a different city has increased sales by moving from a downtown location to a suburban one. The argument may seem sound, but we can’t completely analogize these different trading-card shops. First of all, the demographics in their respective cities may respond to different incentives. Maybe that particular city’s downtown district was already on the rise, and the relocation merely reaped the benefits? Without this thorough background info, we can’t make this analogy.

4. Correlation Does Not Imply Causation: This fallacy, more lovingly known as the post hoc fallacy, may be one of the most common you’ll encounter when examining the pool of arguments, so it’s essential that you master it. There are two basic ways a fallacious cause-and-effect claim can be made. First, the speaker may claim that a correlation suggests causation; just because two phenomena often occur together, it doesn’t mean that one event causes the other. Second, the speaker may claim that a temporal relationship suggests causation; by the same logic, just because one event happens after another, it doesn’t mean that event caused the other to occur.

A speaker may often use correlation to simply causation when a lurking variable is present. Take this argument for example: As ice cream sales increase, the rate of drowning deaths increases, so ice cream causes drowning. This one may take some head-scratching to realize that ice cream is more popular in the summer months, when water activities are also more popular.

5.  Inappropriate Statistics: You will often find that these arguments cite statistical evidence to bolster their claims. As you may find out, simply citing evidence does not prove a claim since the statistics may be faulty, unrepresentative, or inapplicable. The speaker may often cite a statistic that polled a sample group in order to draw a conclusion about a larger group represented by the sample. This is where problems can arise. For a sample to adequately represent a larger population, it must be of significant size and characteristically representative of the population. For example, a speaker may try to make a broad claim about graduate school’s impracticality by citing statistics from one particular university, e.g. 80 percent of University X undergrads were employed within one year of graduating, while only 50 percent of the graduate students of the same university were employed after one year. The statistics of one university simply cannot account for a sweeping claim about graduate education. To really identify the source of the employment disparity, we’d have to compare the admission standards for undergrads and grad students, examine the economy of the surrounding area, compare the types of jobs sought by undergrads and grads, and show the distribution of majors among grads and undergrads.

6.  Biased or Tainted Data: Tainted data is the second problem that could arise with data samples. For data to be considered legitimate it has to be collected in an unbiased, fair, and scientific manner, otherwise the quality of the data is compromised. For example, if there is reason to believe that survey responses are dishonest, the results may be unreliable. Further, the results may be unreliable if the method for collecting the data is biased, e.g. if the survey is designed, consciously or unconsciously, to yield certain responses. To spot tainted data, make sure that if a survey should be conducted anonymously–like in the workplace–then it is indicated. Also, watch out for surveys that try to manipulate responses by providing narrow options. For example, a survey asking the question “What is your favorite ice cream flavor?” should have more options than simply “coconut” and “mint;” from those findings, we might fallaciously conclude that 78% of people identify “mint” as their favorite ice cream flavor.

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Punctuation

Sentence A: Let’s eat, Grandma!

Sentence B: Let’s eat Grandma!

Sentence C: Every dog knows its master.

Sentence D: Every dog knows it’s master.

The ancient Romans wrote with little or no punctuation, and usually without even putting any spaces between the words. It is hard to imagine the confusion that could arise from that, when in English a simple mark (such as a comma or an apostrophe) can make such difference in the sense of the sentence. In the first pair, Sentence A conveys familial devotion, while B implies cannibalism; in the second pair, Sentence C features man’s best friend looking up to humans, while in Sentence D, the dog looks down on humans.

Of course, the GMAT is unlikely to feature something so simple (or potentially comical), but punctuation is often needed to reduce ambiguity or to change the meaning of a phrase or clause. Relative clauses – clauses starting with a relative pronoun like which, who, or that – are prime candidates for a change in meaning, especially ones starting with which or that. Semicolons and commas, because they separate clauses, can also change the meaning of a sentence by changing the point where one clause begins and another ends.

On her way to the store, Priya decided to purchase a personal organizer, a new computer with a wireless network card, and a barking toy robot dog that would make her life easier, she decided.

A. and a barking toy robot dog that would make her life easier, she decided.

B. and a barking toy robot dog; that would make would make her life easier, she decided.

C. and a barking toy robot dog that would make her life easier; she decided.

D. and a barking toy robot dog making her life easier, she decided.

E. and, deciding that would make her life easier, a barking toy robot dog.

Answer next time, and after that, a brief look at conditional statements!

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1.  Note how the variables relate to each other. Especially when you see a Table or a Graph, quickly summarize for yourself the relationship between the variables in each table, chart, or graph. Do they have a direct or indirect correlation? Does the data spike or significantly decrease at certain points?

2.  Treat Integrated Reasoning like an open-book test.  One of the most common mistakes on the Integrated Reasoning section is using the wrong information because of a slight grasp of the presented information. The data you need to solve IR questions must lie on the various screens; you just have to know where to look. First understand what the question is asking, then stop and consider which table, graph, chart, or part of the passage provides the relevant information you’ll need to solve for the correct answer. Harder IR questions will require you to use more than one screen or ask you to take information or figures from one screen and apply it to another.

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3.  Pause to read the all of the labels. Mentally categorize each graph, chart and table. Do not just skip the screens entirely and go straight to the question/s on IR! While you may think this will save you time, it actually significantly decreases your accuracy. Make sure you read every tiny piece of writing on or near the data, including titles, the labels for the x and y-axes, column names, and even footnotes, if any. Analysis and synthesis are the tested skills in IR, and you’ll need to fully comprehend the data in order to answer questions accurately. Unlike RC, skimming will never work here!

4.  Check out the units. Once you understand the labels, take special care to note the units (mph, m/sec, cm², etc.). Are we dealing with seconds, minutes, or hours? Does one graph represent a year, while the other graph represents the specific months? The units may change from graph-to-graph or chart-to-table, and some IR questions might ask you do simple conversions as you move between the screens.

5.  Always ask: what does this data tell me? Most scientific reasoning either goes from broad to specific, or from specific to broad. Pay attention to the trends in the presented information. What kinds of generalization are possible, and does the remaining data corroborate this, or contradict it?

 Need more help with GMAT practice test questions? Contact one of Grockit’s GMAT tutors to set up a private tutoring lesson! Grockit tutors can work on outside questions from the Official Guide or other sources and help clarify any doubts you may still have. Check out more info on the Tutoring tab in the Grockit lobby!