[情報] GMAT考試資訊Update(2)!!

看板GMAT (GMAT入學考試)作者tootoobenee (A級垂耳兔)時間14年前 (2011/09/21 00:35)推噓0(0推 0噓 0→)

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Sentence Correction is more and more about meaning rather than grammar We’ve already been speculating about this and other Sentence Correction changes on the forums, and Larry confirmed this one. GMAC has asked ACT (the people who write the actual test questions for GMAC) to emphasize meaning more on SC questions. There are an increasing number of questions in which two or more answer choices are grammatically correct and the key distinction rests upon maintaining the meaning from the question stem. If you’re concentrating solely on the grammar and haven’t learned how to incorporate meaning into your assessment, you’re going to find the real GMAT harder. If you’d like to see some examples of what I’m talking about, crack open your Official Guide Verbal Supplement 2nd Edition and take a look at question 37. Answer choices B and E are both grammatically correct, but only one maintains the original meaning of the question stem. Which one? (I think this is a great study question for multiple reasons, actually – more on that in a minute.) While there are several superficial differences between the two answers, the major difference is in the placement of the phrase “last year.” Last year is a modifier that tells us when a specific action or event occurred. What happened last year? According to the original sentence, the earthquake occurred last year. Do both answer choices B and E maintain that meaning? Nope. Only B does. E says that the buildings had been constructed last year. How do we know that? “<Last year> some <of the buildings> <that were destroyed or heavily damaged> <in the earthquake> had been constructed…” The stuff in brackets is all modifiers. The word “some” is the subject and the verb is “had been constructed.” “Of the buildings” modifies “some.” “ that were destroyed…” modifies “buildings” and “in the earthquake” modifies “destroyed or damaged.” In other words, the subject “some” has a bunch of modifiers following it, but the modifier “last year” precedes the subject. “Last year” has to modify some kind of an action or event. The subject “some” isn’t an event or action, so“last year” can’t modify that. The next core part of the sentence is “had been constructed,” which is an action, so “last year” modifies that action. Note that, in the original sentence, the modifier “last year” appears as part of the prepositional phrase “in the earthquake last year” – that is, in the original sentence, last year” is part of the nested modifiers for the subject, while in answer E, “last year” has been sort of pulled“up” to the level of the core sentence. And, voila, the meaning has been changed. The other reason I really love this problem: it also illustrates a case of when we should change the original meaning of the sentence. Most of the time, we’re going to be maintaining the original meaning… but sometimes there’s something illogical about that meaning. In question 37, the problem says that some buildings “were destroyed and heavily damaged” but that doesn’t actually make sense! A building is either destroyed or heavily damaged, but it can’t be both simultaneously because these are two different states on the same continuum. The correct answer, B, switches that “and” to the more logical “ or.” (Note that answers B and E both make this switch – they’re both completely grammatically and logically correct, so this one really does come down to the ability to maintain the original meaning of the sentence.) -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 59.121.130.90