Before scientists learned how to make a synthetic growth

[RonPurewal]

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if you make that alternate version of the sentence, then it gives a meaning that's not intended: 'they' implies that the same scientists—the ones who figured out how to synthesize the hormone artificially—were the people tasked with removing it from dead animals before that discovery.

that's clearly not the intended meaning here... but, at the same time, it's not completely absurd.
this is not how meaning-based SC eliminations work on the exam. if something has a 'wrong meaning', then that meaning should be total nonsense.

so, again, we have one of the ≥99 percent of cases described above... 'wrong, but you shouldn't care why'.

[tim]

The rule is stated in OG, but i cannot discuss here but the altnative structure is like "sb ..........and she .......", the subject of the underlined part has to be what "she" refers instead of anything else. I will learn the lesson from this question and I will not any more judge whether the pronoun is alright or not based on the parallel rule.. THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR HELP

Eh, one of the reasons we're here is because the OG explanations are not always 100% helpful (or even reliable). Their questions and answers are solid, but as Ron has mentioned elsewhere, they send in their JV squad to write the explanations.

[SudiptaB23]

Hi Ron,

You said that the following sentence is correct (posted by 'shwetha_shyam' on Tue Nov 29, 2011 12:54 pm):

Sentence: Before learning how to synthesize a growth hormone, scientists had to remove it painstakingly in small amounts from the pituitary glands of human cadevers.

However, you said that the following option is wrong (posted by 'changed_now' on Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:19 am):

" learning how to synthesize the growth hormone, scientists had to remove it painstakingly"

Query: both the sentence and option are almost identical except the articles ('a' in the first one and 'the' in the second one). Then why the former is correct and the latter is wrong?

Thanks,
Sudipta.

[RonPurewal]

this exam doesn't test "a"/"an"/"the", so, honestly, there's no reason to worry about that.

[SudiptaB23]

Thanks Ron for your quick response. I do know that GMAC doesn't test "a"/"an"/"the". Hence I am not worried about this.

I just want to know whether both of the following options would have been correct from the perspective of this question.

Before scientists learned how to make a synthetic growth hormone, removing it painstakingly in small amounts from the pituitary glands of human cadevers

Option 1: learning how to synthesize a growth hormone, scientists had to remove it painstakingly
Option 2: learning how to synthesize the growth hormone, scientists had to remove it painstakingly

Thanks,
Sudipta.

[tim]

I would caution you against ever asking "what if" questions about changing parts of verbal questions, because there are often several interconnected parts that cannot be fully accounted for by a single change. Just focus on why the right answer is right and why all the wrong answers are wrong.

[SudiptaB23]

Hi Tim,

If you had read the context in which I have asked these "what if" questions then probably your idea would have been different.

Your idea is that I have posted these "what if" questions for the first time. No, it's not correct. These "what if" questions (or options) were intially asked by other members of the forum and one of your colleagues readily answered them.

What I wanted to know about these "what if" questions, previously answered by your colleague, is why the first option is correct whereas the second option is wrong?


Thanks,
Sudipta.

[tim]

Doesn't change a thing. I stand by what I said and continue to encourage you to focus on actual sentence constructions the GMAT gives you rather than making up your own. My goal here is to help you maximize your GMAT score, and I hope you'll understand if that occasionally means steering clear of certain questions I don't think will help maximize your score. It is of course entirely possible that one of my colleagues will choose to address your what-if situation; I know I sometimes answer math questions that are unrelated to the GMAT and that my colleagues avoid for exactly the same reasons. The main thing is to keep your focus as much as possible on things you actually know the GMAT is testing, and the best way to ensure that is to use examples that come straight from the GMAT.

[SudiptaB23]

When contradictory answers come from a 'ManhattanGMAT Staff' then every gmac aspirant has the right to clarify the contradiction in order to understand whether the answers are actually contradictory or is there any fault on their part in understanding the answers.

It doesn't matter if you don't want to get involved to clear the contradiction that was introduced by another 'ManhattanGMAT Staff' who answered the 'what-if' questions (or options) asked by other members of this forum .

I stand by what I have asked.

Sudipta.

[NicoleT643]

I think the incorrect choice (D) distorts the meaning.

Choice (D) reads:
Before learning how to make a sythetic growth hormone, scientists had to remove it painstakingly in small amounts from the pituitary glands of human cadevers.

As per Ron's lecture, "v-ing" form ("learning") may express the meaning of "process-oriented", i.e. focus on the "learning" process. I think this sentence illogically means that scientists had to remove it painstakingly before they were able to learn it.
Analogy:
Before eating meals, I have to wash my hands.

Dear instructors, am I correct?

correct; this sentence implies that the same scientists did both things. i.e., it implies that the people who learned to make the hormone were exactly the same people who previously had to extract it from human cadavers.
that's not a reasonable meaning, so you are absolutely right about eliminating on those grounds. nicely done.

Hi Ron, sorry to reopen this thread. Could you please explain more about the V-ing form and the meaning of process-oriented? I don't quite understand how to use it to eliminate choices, thanks.

[RonPurewal]

^^ here you go:
gmat-prep-sc-t12770-15.html#p112414

[fionaw752]

--

if you make that alternate version of the sentence, then it gives a meaning that's not intended: 'they' implies that the same scientists—the ones who figured out how to synthesize the hormone artificially—were the people tasked with removing it from dead animals before that discovery.

that's clearly not the intended meaning here... but, at the same time, it's not completely absurd.
this is not how meaning-based SC eliminations work on the exam. if something has a 'wrong meaning', then that meaning should be total nonsense.

so, again, we have one of the ≥99 percent of cases described above... 'wrong, but you shouldn't care why'.

Hi Ron, sorry to bump this old thread.
As you said above, the alternate version is not the intended meaning, but it is also not completely absurd. So how could we approach this kind of situation, i mean when the alternate version is not totally nonsense to eliminate. Does it mean we have to know exactly what the writer wants to say when we read the sentence first time? i think it maybe helpful to compare the choices, for instance, choice D does not have an absolute error to eliminate, but it is possible to compare it with choice C, if i luckily discern the meaning of choice C is better than that of choice D. could this be a kind of a skill to solve SC problem? thank you very much. BTW i notice that harder SC problems include choices that do not have black or white splits to eliminate. as you have said in "Thursday with Ron" many times that the first step is always know what does the sentence want to say.

[RonPurewal]

^^ this is why you shouldn't try to "make your own answer choices"—if you do, they won't act like the answer choices on the actual exam.

if an official problem actually depends on a meaning difference, the difference will be clear.

[jabgt]

In sentence correction, don't forget about three C's: Correctness, Clarity, and Concision. Correctness is significantly more important than the other two, and most sentence correction questions can either be fully answered or narrowed down to the final two answer choices strictly through the use of proper grammatical construction. However, on more difficult questions, clarity and concision can also play important determining roles.

In the problem at hand, the original sentence, along with answer choices B and D, indicate that scientists removed "a synthetic growth hormone" from cadavers. This is nonsensical, as something synthetic, by definition, does not come from a natural source. Thus, A, B, and D can be eliminated based on their lack of clarity.

Before scientists learned how to make a synthetic growth hormone, removing it painstakingly in small amounts from the pituitary glands of human cadevers.

A)
B) scientists had learned about making a synthetic growth hormone, they had to remove it painstakingly.
C) scientists learned how to synthesize the growth hormone, it had to be painstakingly removed
D) learning how to make a sythetic growth hormone, scientists had to remove it painstakingly
E) learning how to synthesize the growth hormone, it had to be painstakingly removed by scientists

I chose D which is Incorrect. I used the split and re-split method here. but looks like the
correct answer is C. In addition to explain the inccorect choice, can you please describe briefly why each of the answer choices is wrong or each of the answer choices ARE wrong?

Thank you, Dan!

[RonPurewal]

^^ i'm glad you found that post helpful.

that post is also 9.5 years old. (: