Grammer Mistakes Made : Often repeated ones

1. Everyone is a collective noun and all collective nouns must take singular verb.
2. one-hundred-and-twenty percent, Needless to say, are considered wordy
3. after comma, be careful of participial phrases
4. use plural verb whenever subjects are combined with ' and'
5. anticipate shd be followed by gerund.. personnel is group of persons...
6. when plural subject(esp has,have) is used, look for verb, best or better, among or between
7. Whenever "than" is present verb in both sides must be similar.
8.The original contains a verb mood error. “If adolescence was” is improper subjunctive. “Was” should not be used in an “if” clause indicating a hypothetical condition. "If adolescence were” is correct
9. difference between "that" and "which": The modifier uses the relative pronoun “that,” but “that” should only introduce essential modifiers. “Which” is a better choice here, since the modifying phrase is non-essential.
10."in that " is considered overly formal. donot use it in gmat
11. as a means to is correct idiom
12. is attributed to
13. enrollements is plural
14.just as y; so x

Reasoning questions that puzzled me #2 :Good ones

Question # 1

Ellen: All three of Shirley's children have the measles!

Lois: As a matter of fact, all three of Shirley's children are fine!

Accepting the assumption that nobody who has measles is fine, which of the following must be true about this exchange?

A) It is possible that both Ellen and Lois are right about Shirley's children.

B) It is possible that both Ellen and Lois are mistaken about Shirley's children.

C) Either Ellen is right about Shirley's children, or Lois is right about them, but they cannot both be right.

D) Ellen and Lois might both be right about Shirley's children, and they might both be wrong about them.

E) None of these alternatives correctly identifies a possibility for this scenario.

Question #2

In 1973, a remote town first acquired television. Shortly before broadcasts began there, a study was made of children's behavior. A similar study in the same community, after two years of TV, showed that the aggression rate among children of this age had increased by 160%. The conclusion drawn was that TV plays an important role in generating aggressive behavior in children. A second study, covering the same years, was made in two similar communities that had had television for decades. This study showed no change in the aggression rate from 1973 to 1975. The results of the second study:

A) suggest that the prevalence of violent themes in TV programming may be explained by the tendencies toward violence that are deeply-rooted in human nature.

B) indicate that different social groups may react quite differently to similar stimuli.

C) demonstrate that long-term exposure to TV has no more severe effects than short-term exposure.
D) support the conclusion drawn from the first study.
E) disprove the conclusion drawn from the first study.

Question # 3

A valid argument is often defined as one in which it is not possible for all the premises to be true and the conclusion false. A circular argument is sometimes defined as one in which one of the premises is identical to the conclusion. From these definitions we can infer that...

A) Every circular argument is valid as long as its premises are true.

B) Every valid argument is circular.

C) No circular argument is valid.

D) Some circular arguments are valid, and some are not.

E) Some circular arguments are not valid, and some valid arguments are not circular.

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ANSWERS

(B) These two statements are called 'contraries.' That is, they cannot both be true, but they can both be false. The latter would valid if, for example, two of Shirley's children had measles and the third one was fine. But no combination of illness and health in Shirley's children will allow both Ellen and Lois's statements to be true. (C) is incorrect because there is no reason why either one of them has to be correct. Both Ellen and Lois could be wrong.

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(A) This is a complicated question and requires a complicated explanation. It is important to keep in mind just what the reported results are. Perhaps most importantly, nothing is said about the absolute values of the aggression rates, but only about changes in the rates. And nothing is said about how the rates in the other two communities compared with those of the first. The first study correlated two changes-the change from no TV to TV in 1973 and the change in aggression rates from 1973 to 1975. And the tentative conclusion is that the first of these changes was the cause of the second change. The second study focused on communities in which there was no change of the first sort-they were already well accustomed to TV in 1973. (Thus the second study focuses on a sort of natural 'control group.') That study found that there was no change of the second type - aggression rates in those communities remained constant from 1973 to 1975. The second study thus tends to reduce the plausibility of the suggestion that some change other than the introduction of TV caused the rise in aggressiveness in the first community (it acts as a 'control' to this experiment.) If there were some other cause, at least it doesn't seem to have been acting in the communities of the second study. And that reduces the range of possible candidates. Thus the second study tends to make more probable the conclusion drawn from the first.

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(A) Some people find this paradoxical, but it follows directly that circular arguments are valid. If the premises are true, and the conclusion is one if the premises, it must be true. Another trick here is the word 'valid.' Just because an argument is valid, does not mean it is true. Many people will make that false assumption and be thrown off on this question.