At page 217, question 10(h) is wrong:

The chemical processes were complex enough for them to require additional analysis

My question is, why is the sentence above wrong, if I base the construction as per page 205 of the same book, wherein the sentence.."The book was short enough for me to read in one night" - is correct?

Thank you!

Hmm, this is a good question. I initially started a response that said it had to do with the "for them to (do)..." and "for me to (do)" difference. "Them" in 10(h) refers to the subject, "chemical processes." Whereas "me" is a new actor in the sentence.

But why not "The book was short enough to read in one night"?

Maybe the "for me" is optional/acceptable in the book example--at least it's not redundant.

But "for them" is redundant and unnecessarily interupts the idiom in the chemical processes example.

In any case, I am going to ask some other colleagues to review this.

_________________
Emily Sledge
Instructor
ManhattanGMAT

hi - some additional perspective.

first of all:
don't forget, guys: this test doesn't use the first person. you will never have to worry about "i/me/we/they".
(also, no second person, either - no "you".)
all gmat sentences are written in the third person.



there are two reasons why "the book was short enough to read in one night" won't work. both are clarity issues.

1. INCORRECT MEANING
if you say "NOUN is ADJ enough to VERB", then the NOUN must also be the subject of the VERB.
i.e.,
jimmy is tall enough to reach the top shelf --> the verb "reach the top shelf" applies to jimmy.
therefore, this version creates an absurdity: "short enough to read" implies that the book itself is reading (something unspecified) in one night. that doesn't make sense.

this rule is violated routinely in spoken language, of course; hence the difficulty.

2. MEANING SHIFT
"for me" is essential to the meaning of that particular example; it couldn't be left out.
i.e., "short enough to read in one night" is a universal statement: anyone could read the item in one night.
"short enough for me to read in one night" could have a drastically different meaning if "my" reading speed differs significantly from the average.

as for whether the construction "ADJ enough for PERSON to VERB" is actually idiomatic, though - i have no idea.
it sounds suspiciously informal; it doesn't seem like "gmat style" to me. but, at the same time, i won't immediately mark it as colloquial, since i can't immediately think of a better, more formal alternative.

--

if you wanted to rewrite this without "for me", you would use the passive:
the book is short enough to be read in one night
(note that this satisfies the subject rule above: "the book" is indeed the subject of "to be read". that's the point of the passive voice)
this sentence still suffers from the meaning shift mentioned in #2 above, though, but at least it removes problem #1.



yes, there is a redundancy issue, but it's actually much worse than that.

again, i'm not sure whether "NOUN is ADJ enough for PERSON to VERB" is acceptable as an idiom, but, if it is, then the NOUN must be the direct object of the VERB.
let's check:
the book was short enough for me to read in one night
direct object? (i.e., do i read the book)?
yes.

the chemical processes were complex enough for them to require additional analysis
chemical processes is not the direct object of require, so this won't work.

the book was short enough for me to read in one night

How do we decide that Noun should be object or subject of to + verb?
" NOUN is ADJ enough for PERSON to VERB" is not clear to me. If aforementioned sentence is correct, then the book is object of verb read. But why not subject ?
There are two contradictory statements in Mr. Ronpurewal's reply, or I may be confused.

the book is short enough to be read in one night: The book is subject of passive verb to be read.
please clarify !!

No, Ron's answer is not contradictory. In your first sentence, "me" is the person doing the reading (the subject), and book is the object of "read". In your second one, "book" is the only noun, so it must be the subject. Not a problem though, as a book can definitely "be read" even though it cannot read. The difference is the distinction between the active verb "read" and the passive verb "be read"..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor