Laos has a land area

[RonPurewal]

And in choice:
Laos has a land area that....,but+adverbial modifier,many of them are members...
that structure is right??

Thanks in advance!

Is this choice C?
No. Not right. Total lack of parallelism with "but".

Looking above, I may have been examining the wrong answer choice"”the lack of parallelism in C is pretty clear.

[JIYUS618]

Grazie mille!

[jnelson0612]

Grazie mille!

:-)

[RonPurewal]

Sure. If anything is still unclear on any of the other choices, please let me know. Thanks.

[rte.sushil]

In one of the post: Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 9:52 pm : it is mentioned them is not right to use

In another post: Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:46 am
it is mentioned some of them is run -on

In another post: Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:02 am
them is ok to use in C option

them or whom refers to people
some of them OR some of whom is right to use as it is referring to people just before comma

Am i right?



2.) Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 11:43 am:

2. Because "many of them are members" is a full, stand-alone sentence that shouldn't be separated from the first part of the sentence with just a comma, while "many of whom are members" is a dependant clause.

many of whom are members dependent clause,,,,ok
but i think
many of them are members is also dependent clause

whom /them : should not make a difference between dependent clause and stand-alone sentence.

maybe i could be wrong. Please throw some more light on this with some example.


Thanks:)

[RonPurewal]

In one of the post: Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 9:52 pm : it is mentioned them is not right to use

In another post: Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:46 am
it is mentioned some of them is run -on

In another post: Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:02 am
them is ok to use in C option

them or whom refers to people
some of them OR some of whom is right to use as it is referring to people just before comma

Am i right?

Please quote the actual text of these references. Time stamps are not particularly helpful, especially when you are quoting multiple posts.
Thanks.

Both "some of whom" and "some of them" can introduce modifiers. Those modifiers, however, have different structures.

"Some of whom" (like "which" or "who") needs a verb afterward.
"Some of them", if used to start a modifier, can't have a verb afterward; if there's a verb, a run-on sentence is created.

[RonPurewal]

E.g.,

Shopping at a thrift store, Becky found several designer items. Some of them were worth hundreds of dollars.
Correct.
Two sentences.

Shopping at a thrift store, Becky found several designer items. Some of which were worth hundreds of dollars.
Incorrect.
"Some of which" must introduce a modifier. It can't be the subject of a sentence.

Shopping at a thrift store, Becky found several designer items, some of which were worth hundreds of dollars.
Correct.

Shopping at a thrift store, Becky found several designer items, some of them were worth hundreds of dollars.
Incorrect.
Complete sentence + comma + complete sentence = run-on sentence.

[soulwangh]

Hi Ron.
Thanks for your and other teachers' hard working.
Here I have some questions:

1// This is not a question but a reminder.

Who said "them" was wrong in choice C? It looks OK to me.

If I wrote that, please tell me where, so I can edit it.

Thanks.

This thread, page 2. Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 4:38 am

@ shimbal80
shimbal80 wrote:
I am confused. Is not correct that "them" is referring to "people"?
Why is not correct?

Thanks in advance


go read that choice (c) again; the word "people" does not exist anywhere in that choice (or in the non-underlined part). a pronoun cannot refer to a word that is not actually there!
the closest you get in that sentence is "population", but that's singular.

2//

And in choice:
Laos has a land area that....,but+adverbial modifier,many of them are members...
that structure is right??

Thanks in advance!

Is this choice C?
No. Not right. Total lack of parallelism with "but".

Looking above, I may have been examining the wrong answer choice"”the lack of parallelism in C is pretty clear.

You did not mention any thing about the parallelism issue in C.
IMO, C is not wrong for the parallelism issue, if you read it without referring to the original sentence. It is a sentence which has two sub-sentences connected by comma+but.

My question is“ what is wrong, in your opinion, with C？”.

C that is about the same size as Great Britain’s land area, but in Laos with a population of only four million people, many of them

My opinion about C：
1）Antecedent "PEOPLE" exists in open modifier，and pronoun "THEM" is the subject of the main sentence. Stylistic Issue.
2) Open modifier "in Laos with a population of only four million people" does not modifies the subject "many of them".
3）Logic of the whole sentence is not reasonable. The intent meaning of the sentence is to contrast a large land size to a small population. C does not render this meaning.

Please justify my view.
Thanks.

[soulwangh]

Hi Ron.
Thanks for your and other teachers' hard working.
Here I have some questions:

1// This is not a question but a reminder.

Who said "them" was wrong in choice C? It looks OK to me.

If I wrote that, please tell me where, so I can edit it.

Thanks.

This thread, page 2. Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 4:38 am

@ shimbal80
shimbal80 wrote:
I am confused. Is not correct that "them" is referring to "people"?
Why is not correct?

Thanks in advance


go read that choice (c) again; the word "people" does not exist anywhere in that choice (or in the non-underlined part). a pronoun cannot refer to a word that is not actually there!
the closest you get in that sentence is "population", but that's singular.

2//

And in choice:
Laos has a land area that....,but+adverbial modifier,many of them are members...
that structure is right??

Thanks in advance!

Is this choice C?
No. Not right. Total lack of parallelism with "but".

Looking above, I may have been examining the wrong answer choice"”the lack of parallelism in C is pretty clear.

You did not mention any thing about the parallelism issue in C.
IMO, C is not wrong for the parallelism issue, if you read it without referring to the original sentence. It is a sentence which has two sub-sentences connected by comma+but.

My question is“ what is wrong, in your opinion, with C？”.

C that is about the same size as Great Britain’s land area, but in Laos with a population of only four million people, many of them

My opinion about C：
1）Antecedent "PEOPLE" exists in open modifier，and pronoun "THEM" is the subject of the main sentence. Stylistic Issue.
2) Open modifier "in Laos with a population of only four million people" does not modifies the subject "many of them".
3）Logic of the whole sentence is not reasonable. The intent meaning of the sentence is to contrast a large land size to a small population. C does not render this meaning.

Please justify my view.
Thanks.

bump

[RonPurewal]

OK. When I said "them" was wrong, I didn't mean wrong in the pronoun/antecedent sense. "People" is a perfectly good antecedent.

The problem is that "Many of them are..." is a complete sentence. If this sentence is attached as though it were a modifier--as in choice C--then it creates a run-on sentence.

If "many of them" is replaced by "many of whom", then there's a modifier where there should be one.

If I said "them" was wrong, that is what I meant. Sorry for any lack of clarity.

[RonPurewal]

You did not mention any thing about the parallelism issue in C.
IMO, C is not wrong for the parallelism issue, if you read it without referring to the original sentence.

Remember!
Step 1 = Read the sentence as though you were reading a book or magazine.
DO NOT think about grammar.
Get the INTENDED MEANING.

If you do Step 1 here, it's quite clear that "relatively large land area" and "relatively small population" SHOULD be parallel structures. Thus, yes, you can eliminate on non-parallelism.

If "without referring to the original sentence" means you're ignoring the intended meaning, then, well, don't.

[RonPurewal]

It is a sentence which has two sub-sentences connected by comma+but.

Interesting point. Note, however, two things:

1/
If you do Step One, you won't interpret the sentence this way. It's not what the sentence is supposed to do.

If you were a pure "grammar engine" (= what the green squiggly line on Microsoft Word aspires to be), then you might think this interpretation is fine. But you can't ignore Step One. Without a clear sense of intended meaning, it's impossible to tell whether any particular grammatical structure is appropriate.


2/
Even if we completely ignore Step One and interpret the sentence this way, it's still nonsense. "With 4 million people" can't be a modifier of the same people; it has to modify something that has 4 million people.

[RonPurewal]

1）Antecedent "PEOPLE" exists in open modifier，and pronoun "THEM" is the subject of the main sentence. Stylistic Issue.
2) Open modifier "in Laos with a population of only four million people" does not modifies the subject "many of them".
3）Logic of the whole sentence is not reasonable. The intent meaning of the sentence is to contrast a large land size to a small population. C does not render this meaning.

I don't know what an "open modifier" is, so I can't judge #1.

It's not necessary to judge #1, though, because "stylistic issue" = "don't use, except as a guessing method". So, ignore.
This exam NEVER tests stylistic issues. If it did, it could not possibly be a fair test for people from different linguistic backgrounds.

#2 and #3 appear to be essentially the same points I made in the post above, so, yes. Nice job on those.

[RonPurewal]

Lastly:

Please justify my view.
Thanks.

It appears that you're using "justify" to mean "judge". If so, that's incorrect.

"Justify _____" means "argue that _____ is CORRECT/APPROPRIATE".
Thus, if taken literally, your request here basically means "Please tell me why I'm right."
Oops.
(:

This doesn't matter here, of course; your meaning was obvious enough.
However, if you encounter the word "justify" in a CR problem--especially the "boldface" variety--then this misunderstanding could kill the whole thing.

[soulwangh]

Lastly:

Please justify my view.
Thanks.

It appears that you're using "justify" to mean "judge". If so, that's incorrect.

"Justify _____" means "argue that _____ is CORRECT/APPROPRIATE".
Thus, if taken literally, your request here basically means "Please tell me why I'm right."
Oops.
(:
This doesn't matter here, of course; your meaning was obvious enough.
However, if you encounter the word "justify" in a CR problem--especially the "boldface" variety--then this misunderstanding could kill the whole thing.

Thanks Ron :)
I know the word in CR question.
But,somehow, I did not output it correctly.
It seems that I use two different systems when reading and writing separately.