SC Question Bank

[wtrang]

#2

Teachers in this country have generally been trained either to approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles without truly understanding how to apply them.


a) to approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles

b) to approach mathematics like a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles

c) to approach mathematics as a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles

d) that they should approach mathematics as a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles

e) that they should approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles

Between b and c (like vs as), why don't we use the word "like" when it is comparing to nouns (mathematics and creative activity). Also for "as", isn't there suppose to be two verbs in the comparison?

Thanks!

[debmalya.dutta]

I think "mathematics like a creative activity" is the right usage as opposed to "mathematics as a creative activity"

Found this on the ManhattanGMAT website :
Another such instance is the difference between "like" and "such as": in GMAT Sentence Correction, such as is used to introduce examples, while "like" indicates only similarity and cannot be used for examples at all.

Based on this and ensuring parallelism ("to approach" needs to be parallel t0 "to force" ), I would opt for B

Is my reasoning correct ?

[wtrang]

I chose b, but the OA is c. My logic was exactly the same as your so that's why I am confused about this question.

[tim]

This is definitely not a case where we would use "such as", because there are no examples of anything given. So in determining whether to use "like" or "as", we look to what we are comparing. In this case we are not comparing math to a creative activity; rather, we are comparing how one should APPROACH math to how one should APPROACH a creative activity. Since we are comparing verbs, we should use "as"..