Mauritius was a British colony

[zhongshanlh]

(b) is a run-on sentence.
"X was Y, except in Z" would be a sentence by itself.
therefore, "X was Y, except in Z, A was B" is a run-on (you can't tag 2 complete sentences together with a comma).

Hi Ron, i still have problem in understanding "except" here:
1. i have searched it in the longman dictionary and found that except can actually function conjunction.
so in B, i think the whole sentence is not a run-on sentence.
2.i would very much like to know the differences between "except" and "except for"
thank you !

[tim]

1. Please be sure *never* to use outside resources for grammar; the GMAT has its own rules, and if you find a rule in a source that was not specifically designed for the GMAT, you may run into information that contradicts GMAT rules..

2. I'll say it again: if you can show an example of a GMAT question that tests the difference between these things, we will discuss it. Otherwise, if there is no evidence that the distinction has ever been tested, you may be wasting your time trying to learn something that is irrelevant to the GMAT..

[thanghnvn]

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island
A. excepting for
B. except in
C. but except in
D.but excepting for
E. with the exception of

IMO B..but OA C...plz explain...
I thought but & except make redundancy error....and also phrase "except in domain of adminstration and teaching" is correctly modifying the clause...

I consult a better dictionary, which is "oxford advanced learner's dictionary"

"except" and "except for " is preposition and so can be used before a noun.
"except (that)" is conjuction and so can be used before a clause.

in c, "except" is conjuntion. the full sentence is

except english is spoken in domain of administration and teaching, english is never spoken on the island.

is my thinking correct?

[thanghnvn]

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island
A. excepting for
B. except in
C. but except in
D.but excepting for
E. with the exception of

IMO B..but OA C...plz explain...
I thought but & except make redundancy error....and also phrase "except in domain of adminstration and teaching" is correctly modifying the clause...

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island
A. excepting for
B. except in
C. but except in
D.but excepting for
E. with the exception of

IMO B..but OA C...plz explain...
I thought but & except make redundancy error....and also phrase "except in domain of adminstration and teaching" is correctly modifying the clause...

I consult a better dictionary, which is "oxford advanced learner's dictionary"

"except" and "except for " is preposition and so can be used before a noun.
"except (that)" is conjuction and so can be used before a clause.

in c, "except" is conjuntion. the full sentence is (this is ellipsis)

except english is spoken in domain of administration and teaching, english is never spoken on the island.

is my thinking correct?

[RonPurewal]

in c, "except" is conjuntion. the full sentence is (this is ellipsis)

except english is spoken in domain of administration and teaching, english is never spoken on the island.

is my thinking correct?

No. This is not "ellipsis", and your "full sentence" is wrong.

It's possible to put "except that" in front of a complete sentence, as long as the complete sentence actually represents an exception to something.
E.g.,
She told me everything about herself except that she had a child.
I.e., "that she had a child" is the one thing about herself that she didn't tell me.

[cshen02]

It's possible to put "except that" in front of a complete sentence, as long as the complete sentence actually represents an exception to something.
E.g.,
She told me everything about herself except that she had a child.
I.e., "that she had a child" is the one thing about herself that she didn't tell me.

I think here "except" acts as a conjunction, so is it possible that "except" can connect two whole sentences, just as and, but...do?
There are three kinds of conjunctions, coordinating, correlative and subordinating, and we also have conjunctive adverbs to glue two main clauses. Do all those kinds of sentence linkage work in the same way, how should I prepare for GMAT on this issue?

[RonPurewal]

is it possible that "except" can connect two whole sentences, just as and, but...do?

No.

"That + sentence" can act as a noun"”as it does here.

Consider:
I knew everything about her except her marital status.
I knew everything about her except that she was married.
Both correct.
Same grammar both times. "That she was married" acts as a noun, just like "marital status".

"Except" cannot connect two complete sentences.

[FanPurewal]

Why is C better than D?
Thanks.

"excepting for" is unidiomatic; this combination is not allowed in proper english.

you can use "excepting" by itself in this sort of situation (i.e., when you want to point out an exception to a negative statement), but not with "for".

hi ROn

can you give me a example about the usage of standalone "excepting"?

thank u, star

[RonPurewal]

Google "excepting". You'll find some dictionary pages containing serviceable examples.

[FanPurewal]

okay, i am going to do that. BIG THANKS! You are so patient and insightful!

by the way, it is almost 2:00am (in cal.) . do all the human beings with high IQ think sleep is a waste of time? ：）

good night GMATgod.

[tim]

Either that or they sleep at hours that you would consider unconventional. Sounds like the basis for a CR problem. :)

[RonPurewal]

Either that or they sleep at hours that you would consider unconventional. Sounds like the basis for a CR problem. :)

People make very weird assumptions about other people's sleep habits.

Incidentally, there is a strong correlation between unusually high intelligence and later sleep/wake times. Although my sleep habits, well, this is not the place for that discussion.

[tim]

In particular, there is an extremely high correlation between Ron's intelligence and his sleep patterns. :)

[VijayR318]

Mauritius was a British colony for almost 200 years, excepting for the domains of administration and teaching, the English language was never really spoken on the island
A. excepting for
B. except in
C. but except in
D.but excepting for
E. with the exception of

IMO B..but OA C...plz explain...
I thought but & except make redundancy error....and also phrase "except in domain of adminstration and teaching" is correctly modifying the clause...

A bit off topic: I was looking at the parallel construction "the domains of administration and teaching", was wondering if this is correct.
We require two nouns followed by "domain of ", but we seem to have "administration" which is a noun, but teaching here is a gerrund.
Can someone please clarify.

[RonPurewal]

"__ing" is either a noun or a modifier, depending on the context in which it appears. here, it's pretty clearly a noun.