Scientists have found new evidence emotions like sadness or :: Manhattan GMAT Forums

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 2:46 pm

rschunti wrote:

Scientists have found new evidence of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as heartburn—by monitoring what’s going on within their bodies.
A. of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as
B. of people initially registering emotions such as sadness or anger much the same way as experiencing
C. that people initially register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as they experiencing
D. that a person initially registers emotions such as sadness or anger much the same way as experiencing
E. that a person initially registers emotions like sadness or anger much the same way as

This is GMATPREP question. I choose "B". But the answer is "E". What al errors are in "B" and in "E" why it is experiencing and not experience?

Are you sure E is correct? I always thought we need to use Such as for examples.???

MGMAT Tutors please comment.

Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 2:13 am

i suspect that this problem has been mis-transcribed in a couple of places. to wit:

- choice c ends with 'as they experiencing'. that is way, way too obviously wrong to show up on the real test, so the real wording of choice c is probably different.
- if choice e is to be correct (as the original poster contends), it needs the word in between 'anger' and 'much'. that word appears to have gone missing.

in any case:

- the wording at the beginning of choices a and b is ambiguous and possibly even unidiomatic.
--- proper english doesn't say 'evidence of x doing y'; it says 'evidence that x does y', so we can rule those choices out on the basis of idiom.
--- also, 'evidence of people registering emotions' technically has two meanings: (i) the obvious and correct meaning, and (ii) hysterical evidence that is walking around sobbing. yes, i know that the second interpretation is completely absurd, but the gmat brooks no ambiguity whatsoever in its correct answers.

- also, choices b-c-d change the meaning of the sentence: the original idea is that people register the emotions in the same way as they register heartburn, but those choices change the latter part to experiencing heartburn. that's a pretty significant change in meaning - from the initial detection of a condition to the entire experience of that condition.

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 4:43 am

tutor
does not in E both sadness and anger come in category of emotions??
i think use of such as would have been better use rather than like...
am i wrong??

Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:51 am

whoa, looks like i was asleep on the job last time. geez.

we can rule out d-e immediately, on the grounds of pronoun agreement: the non-underlined portion of the sentence contains 'their', so we need 'people' to agree with it. 'a person' is singular, which is unacceptable in context.

so i guess choice a is the best answer, although i stand by my previous comments about the general awful-ness of the wording at the beginning of that choice.

yuk. what's the o.a. for this question? it isn't pretty.

Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 12:36 pm

RPurewal wrote:

whoa, looks like i was asleep on the job last time. geez.

we can rule out d-e immediately, on the grounds of pronoun agreement: the non-underlined portion of the sentence contains 'their', so we need 'people' to agree with it. 'a person' is singular, which is unacceptable in context.

so i guess choice a is the best answer, although i stand by my previous comments about the general awful-ness of the wording at the beginning of that choice.

yuk. what's the o.a. for this question? it isn't pretty.

Ron, Can you please explain whether the use of Like is correct to give examples? I always thought we use such as to give examples.

I know the other uses of Like too but here it somewhat seems unacceptables.

He runs like a dog--This is correct.
Can you buy me fruits like oranges and apples ( is this correct?)

Thanks
Saurabh Malpani

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 4:06 am

'such as' is used to list examples, whereas 'like' implies fundamental similarity. for instance:
my friends play sports such as football and rugby --> my friends play sports, including football and rugby, but some of them might play things like golf or bowling
my friends play sports like football and rugby --> my friends all play sports that include lots of tackling / roughhousing / physical contact and running (and/or share other fundamental characteristics of football and rugby).

in this particular problem, 'like' would be taken to refer to similarly negative emotions (notice the connection made with ... heartburn, which is also distinctly negative). 'like' is not used to provide examples, so, if the two emotions mentioned are propounded as examples rather than as standards for comparison, then 'such as' is the way to go.

i'll say it again: ick. i don't really like any of the answer choices all that much.

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:39 pm

Just want to echo Ron - something's wrong with this question overall. Can the original poster please go back and check it against the official question from GMATPrep? Enough things are missing or have been mis-transcribed that all of the answers are wrong!

If the original poster picked this up from another site on the web somewhere, rather than directly from GMATPrep, this should just teach us all to be cautious: try to get stuff directly from the source yourself, rather than trusting that other unknown people have transcribed questions correctly. People can mess up a question pretty severely just through a few mistakes when transcribing questions.

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:34 am

[quote="Saurabh Malpani"]

rschunti wrote:

Scientists have found new evidence of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as heartburn—by monitoring what’s going on within their bodies.
A. of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as
E. that a person initially registers emotions like sadness or anger much the same way as

Hi Ron,

I am confused as to why you picked A as your least EVIL choice...

of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as XXXXX heartburn....

dont we need a participle...to || registering ??? .

just want to understand the concept -- when can we omit the second verb/participle ??

thanks

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:28 am

[quote="Anon"]

Saurabh Malpani wrote:

rschunti wrote:

Scientists have found new evidence of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as heartburn—by monitoring what’s going on within their bodies.
A. of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as
E. that a person initially registers emotions like sadness or anger much the same way as

Hi Ron,

I am confused as to why you picked A as your least EVIL choice...

of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as XXXXX heartburn....

dont we need a participle...to || registering ??? .

just want to understand the concept -- when can we omit the second verb/participle ??

thanks

you can omit it when both of the following conditions are satisfied:
(1) the verb/participle being omitted is IDENTICAL to its counterpart in the first part of the sentence (i.e., it's exactly the same word)
(2) the sentence is NOT ambiguous if it's omitted

both conditions hold here, so you're good.