GMAT Ninja SC Ep 2: Pronouns

[@ichhajain3738]

Hello team! Found this gem of a channel a week ago and this has been a blessing! I have not studied math and verbal concepts for years since high school so thank you so so much as I'm refreshing my basics before I get on to start solving the OG! I was looking for something to start off SC with (started my prep a week ago) and came across this! Really grateful because for people like me who are scared of quant, understanding the importance of not relying on formulae and using "thinking" and "understanding" as a tool to solve has been life changing ! Again, thank you so much for the quant series and this one too!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much for the kind words, Ichha! I'm honored that we've been able to help a bit. The lovely thing about quant is that it's always learnable if you're in the right mindset and willing to invest some time in it -- even if you never thought of yourself as a "math person." I'm glad that you're starting to break through, and please keep us posted on your progress!

[@azwadmajmader8018]

I have fallen in love with Grammer and sentence correction after I had watched this sentence correction playlist. I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is more than a blessings for every GMAT aspirants. After watching your videos, I got to know how to think differently. Grammer is no more a boring thing. It seems very interesting now and all credit goes to you, sir!!!! Wishing you all the best, sir! All the way from BANGLADESH 🇧🇩❤

[@shivanii22]

These videos are all I need for my revision before I start solving the questions.

[@khananas9896]

Hello Team and specially Charles!Thanks for teaching me how to think.Priceless.I absolutely loved the way you taught and "rules that are floating around the Internet aren't absolute rules" this also settled my nerves.I'm more than just grateful for this episode.Love all the way from Bangladesh 🇧🇩

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

This made my day, thank you so much for the kind words, Khan! Much love back at 'ya from Colorado, USA. Have fun studying!

[@isratsadia]

Your channel is blessing in disguise ❤ I was so frustrated cause sentence correction is my weak point. But i guess it wont be.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm honored that we've been able to help a bit. Have fun studying, and please keep us posted on your progress!

[@anuragmishra145]

You are simply amazing Charles. Thanks a lot for these amazing lessons. May God bless you, lots of ❤

[@Sufi-d3u]

Thanks Charles, I did cover all of them but timing is crucial at this age!

[@rajagharka]

In pine tree example B option ; thus--- start of an independent clause with a conjunction is that correct here?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Yup, that's correct. In both answer choices in the pine tree example, an independent clause follows the semicolon. In (B), the independent clause happens to begin with the conjunction "thus", and that's fine -- in this case, the conjunction doesn't make the clause dependent. I hope that helps a bit!

[@johnmaity6615]

hello team, nice work. wasn't getting SC until i started watching your videos

[@adityavakharia5665]

so glad, i came across your videos on gmat club, i am able to spot subtle differences in options hopefully i will get better with more practice.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you for the kind words! And yes, these things definitely get better with practice. :) Have fun studying, and keep us posted on your progress!

[@passionpreneur9740]

Hi Charles, Need guidance. I have started watching the SC videos in the playlist. After I watch one video, how do i proceed further? Practice questions related to the topic and master it. If yes from where should i practice topic wise questions? I find difficulty in remembering & understanding concepts. When i watch the videos, i understand it, but implementing it is difficult.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

That's a great question, but it doesn't really have a good answer, unfortunately. For starters, we don't have a limitless supply of official SC questions. We have the official guides (including older editions of them) and the mba.com question banks, and that's about it. That's hundreds of questions, but it's remarkably easy to blow through them all, so you'll want to use them wisely. Honestly, there's no point in doing non-official verbal questions: GMAC spends literally thousands of dollars on each question, and non-official "knockoffs" simply aren't close enough to the real thing to be worth your time. So that finite supply of official questions is basically all we have to work with, practically speaking. With that in mind, problem #2 is that topic-based SC "drills" have limited value. Actual, official GMAT questions typically feature several different issues -- and the most important skill is figuring out which issues are the most important in any individual question. Very few questions can be accurately described as "pronoun questions" -- other topics (including meaning) are almost always relevant, too. Put another way: even if you did attempt to practice a set of, say, 20 official "pronoun questions" (as identified by, say, the tags on GMAT Club or something), you'd arguably do yourself more harm than good. The core challenge of SC is knowing where to start and what to focus on. If you know that pronouns are a key part of a particular question, you've already removed an absolutely crucial part of the challenge. If you grasp the concepts that we teach in these videos, all you can really do is work your way through the official practice questions, and focus on integrating all of the concepts as you do so. I 100% understand the appeal of, say, pronoun-specific exercises -- but they're of limited value, and high-quality exercises of that type don't really exist. That's why the first video in our series emphasizes an overall approach to SC -- if you can master that general idea, you'll be in good shape with enough practice. One last thought: if you're struggling to integrate the things you learn in the topic-based videos, you might want to focus pretty much exclusively on the first 12 or so videos in the series, at least in the beginning. Once you get to videos #13-17, we're dealing with relatively minor topics. They're worth learning at some point, but if you can just integrate the first 12 videos into your process, you'll be fine. I know: not the most satisfying answer. But I hope it helps a bit!

[@eat-study]

11:30 more severe error than ambiguity no2 and 3 : crazy examplr 21:00 plural or singular MATTERS

[@kjj8007]

Loving the channel! Highly recommended from Reddit so i'e been watching all of your videos. Quick question, for the Starfish question, shouldn't there have been a comma before "and" ? Or is that not necessary. Thanks!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much for the kind words! Are you referring to the "and" in answer choices (A) and (B), in the phrase "sometimes by the animal overcompensating AND growing an extra one or two"? If so, there's no need for a comma there, since it's just two parallel things that the animal does. More broadly, the GMAT isn't too concerned with comma usage, and it's very rare that you'll need to think about the presence or absence of a comma on the exam. In general, it's better to look for other decision points on SC. I hope that helps a bit!

[@milankhatri7414]

​ @GMATNinjaTutoring in this starfish question, option C, D , E does not have "and" after "overcompensating" , so can not we eliminate based on this because without "and" two ing verb are together which seems wrong

[@simrenbhatia4192]

Wait so, should I look at ambiguity first or subject verb agreement? For example, in basic example 3 i chose option A, thinking that {consumers, household cleaning products, hazardous substances, and them} all had the same subject verb agreement, thinking that option B still had ambiguity. A little confused here, please help me out. Thanks!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

It sounds like you're confusing subject-verb agreement with pronoun agreement. They're not the same thing at all. In both options for Q3, the subject-verb agreement is fine: "Consumers may..." and "A consumer may..." are both completely correct. For more on subject-verb agreement, check out this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIvQYYt-h5lqqdE. The issue we're highlighting in this video is pronoun agreement. The pronoun "they" needs to refer back to a plural noun. In both answer choices, "they" could reasonably refer back to "household cleaning products." The only difference between the two answer choices is that (A) has the plural "consumers", and that creates some potential confusion -- "they" could refer to "consumers", and that would make no sense. (B) avoids that issue entirely by using the singular form, "a consumer" -- so (B) is a bit better than (A). I hope that helps a bit!

[@fahdsalek1802]

Thank you so much dear Charles for these sessions, we love you

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Aw, thank you so much for the kind words, Fahd! You made me blush. Have fun studying!

[@ashishsinha9035]

Got all but one question correct. Thanks GMAT Ninja and Mr. Charles.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you for suffering through this, Ashish! All of the wrong answers must be a sign that we're challenging you properly... I hope? :) Have fun studying!

[@ashishsinha9035]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Sorry for putting it the wrong way. Answers to all questions, except one, were correct.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

@@ashishsinha9035 Awesome, that's even better! Have fun studying, and thank you for all of the positive comments on our videos. They're very much appreciated.

[@aliyusuf3256]

Hey Charles, loving the videos and looking forward to absorbing this series. One way I honed in on answer choices A,B, and C for the last GMAT question example you set up was because it doesn't seem correct to have a problem "distinguishing between a language OR something" but "distinguishing between a language AND something" and "distinguishing a language FROM something" would make more sense. Although I know that's not what you were highlighting in the video, I wasn't sure if I was correct to eliminate D and E using my reasoning or is it not enough? Thanks!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Yup, I think that's completely reasonable, Ali! I agree that it doesn't really make sense to say that we're distinguishing between a language OR a dialect, and that's a perfectly good reason to eliminate (D) and (E). Part of why I prefer to focus on the pronoun first is that it's more likely to lead to quick, unambiguous eliminations -- and it can be harder to grapple with the meaning difference between "and" and "or" in any particular sentence. But in this case, the meaning issue in (D) and (E) is a solid reason to wipe those two out.

[@homegrowneverything5297]

In the starfish question can we say "they" can also point back to "arms" and eliminate them on ambiguity issues instead of the meaning issue? I understand that the meaning issue is a much bigger problem but can I say "them" can refer back to something in a modifier or should they should only refer to the subject?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

As discussed in the video, you definitely don't want to overreact to pronoun ambiguity. When you see a pronoun, just ask yourself if there's something reasonably nearby that the pronoun could refer back to. If the answer is yes, you'll want to move on to other issues. So it can be fine for a pronoun to refer to a noun that's in a modifier. To be clear, I'm not saying that you should completely ignore pronoun ambiguity. But it's rare that it's a deciding factor, and it's something you should worry about only when you're certain that there aren't any other significant differences between two answer choices. I hope that helps!

[@How_To_in_2_Minutes]

Thanks a million gmat ninja🎉

[@rejoicingGrace]

Thank you Ninja team! Look forward to the next episode!

[@kasswaralaswad2314]

Hello Charles, your series are really priceless. Thanks for putting the time and effort to present such a valuable gift to the community. I have one question related to the fourth part. Option "B", A consumer > Think ! Can you elaborate more on this please. Many thanks to your great support and feedback :-)

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much for the kind words, Kasswar! Glad that we've been able to help a bit so far. I'm not sure that I'm interpreting your question correctly, but are you asking about subject-verb agreement on that question? If so, the helping verb ("may") is the same, regardless of whether the subject is "a consumer" or "consumers." So both "a consumer may not think" or "consumers may not think" are correct from a subject-verb perspective. Does that answer your question? If not, just let us know.

[@R9393b]

Thanks for these examples. In the instance of dinosaur tracks, is our plural noun 'dinosaur tracks'? In the vid you mention dinosaur is singular and tracks plural, which is true, but shouldn't we be taking the compound noun/subject 'dinosaur tracks' (or whatever the correct grammatically term is to describe the phrase) as what we're checking against? Not 'dinosaur' and 'tracks'? i.e. it doesnt matter if dinosaur is singular, because dinosaur tracks is plural. An extension of this question is, if we had 'dinosaur tracks show that it walked with its feet directly under its body', would this be correct? To me looks wrong as, as said, I think we need to take the whole phrase 'dinosaur tracks' as what we're assessing against, and that is plural. Thanks!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Sorry for my slow response, Rez! I'm not 100% sure if I'm interpreting your question correctly, but I'll give it a shot. The issue here isn't the phrase "dinosaur tracks" in isolation. It's fair to say that a singular dinosaur could possess multiple tracks. That's fine. The issue is the pronouns, "they", "them", and "their". Since all of these pronouns are plural, they can only refer back to plural nouns. In (A) and (B) in Q1, "tracks" is the only nearby plural noun (since "dinosaur" is singular), and that leads us to nonsense: the TRACKS walked with the tracks' feet underneath the tracks' bodies. Huh? (C) fixes that problem, since "dinosaurs" is now plural. So the pronouns are fine. I hope that helps!

[@R9393b]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring great, thanks!

[@himanshugautam1052]

Sir, In 2nd example B option have A consumer singular with plular verb think how we can ignor subject verb agreement,can you please explain it pleassse

[@manishrawat1309]

Hey Charles , you are amazing. thank you so much for making such amazing videos .

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Aw, thank you so much, Manish! You're making me blush. Have fun studying!

[@radyahhassan]

Hi Charles! I’ve just started my prep and these videos have been very helpful. I have a question for the second last question on Starfish. In option C if the first portion read “they lose one of their arms they quickly replace it” will this be equally wrong?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

I wouldn't spend much of your valuable study time concocting alternate versions of SC questions. Your task on SC is to choose the best of five options -- even if the "best" option isn't perfect. The test-writers choose those five options carefully, and there isn't a ton of value in coming up with hypothetical versions that might never actually appear on the GMAT. :) In your version, I would argue that the meaning isn't great. The use of "they" makes it seem as if a group of starfish collectively lose one arm, and then collectively replace that arm. That's odd -- each individual starfish replaces its own lost arm(s), but it doesn't really make sense to say that a group of starfish do so. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@zeynepyavas2786]

Thank you so much for the great content Charles, it has been ridiculously helpful during my prep. About the last question, option C, can "it" not refer to "how many languages there are in the world"? In this case, wouldn't it be correct to use? Cheers!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much, Zeynep! I'm honored that the videos have helped a bit. I see where you're going with this -- you're referring to the second "it" in option (C), correct? So "those who have tried counting IT typically find..." In theory, if you replace "it" with "how many languages there are in the world", you get a result that makes sense meaning-wise. But there are two problems here. One is that it's not 100% accurate to say that the phrase "how many languages there are in the world" is a singular noun -- I'll skip most of the boring (and usually totally unhelpful!) jargon, but that's actually a clause, and it would be strange for the pronoun "it" refer back to that whole clause. Maybe it's not absolutely, definitively WRONG, but it's definitely not ideal, either. The other issue is that even if you believe that the pronoun "it" can refer back to "how many languages there are in the world", it's awfully confusing. The previous "it" in (C) referred back to "a language", and you have to go WAY back to get to the phrase "how many languages there are in the world." So if that long phrase is indeed the referent for that second "it", the reader has to go through a ton of effort to figure that out. Contrast that with (A), which removes that second "it" entirely. That makes (A) much clearer and easier to understand than (C), even if you really believe that the second "it" can refer all the way back to "how many languages there are in the world". I hope that helps a bit!

[@rahulbasu4539]

Great video series. Thanks for putting in time and efforts. :)

[@srinidhimishra238]

IN Last Question - SV problem with two “Have” in a single sentence without any conjunction.

[@maamejoanat]

Hi, is there a way I can access a personal tutor ?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Hi! You can find out more about our tutoring services here: www.gmatninja.com/gmat/tutoring

[@ishansahay5726]

Hey! Thankyou so much for this video, but can you please clarify a doubt, you said when we look at a pronoun we should check what the pronoun could refer 'back' to in the vicinity, do pronouns always refer back to a noun, or a pronoun can also refer to a noun where the noun is afterwards the pronoun in the sentence?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Yes, it's possible for a pronoun to precede the noun it refers to. Here, have an example: - "Because he is a glutton, Charles ate four kilos of mangoes last night." No problem, right? It's completely clear that "he" refers to "Charles", since that guy is the only reasonable referent anywhere else in the sentence. Don't worry about this usage too much, though -- you won't see this all that often on the GMAT, but it occasionally pops up. Bottom line: if a pronoun has a perfectly logical referent somewhere nearby, it's probably OK, and you'll want to move on to other decision points. I hope that helps!

[@ishansahay5726]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Thankyou so much, this was really helpful, however, I would be really grateful if you could check this question out I got in the official GMAT practice exam 1 from mba.com dealing with the same situation. 1) The first detailed study of magpie attacks in Australia indicates that "by the time they reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in the country had been attacked by the birds". 2) The first detailed study of magpie attacks in Australia indicates that "98 percent of men and 75 percent of women who were born in the country, by the time they reached adulthood had been attacked by the birds" The portion under the quotes is the underlined portion. I boiled it down to these options, both have the same tense, which is correct. However, the first one is the correct option, I was confused about it because I couldn't understand what was 'they' referring to in the first option, as magpie attacks, although plural, was not making sense, but now that you've clarified that pronouns *can* refer to nouns which are ahead in the sentence, 'they' *has* to refer to 98% of men and 75% of women, as it also makes sense logically, because people can reach adulthood, not magpie attacks. But I chose option 2 over 1 because I thought that the placement of 'they' in the second option would refer 'back' to those people, removing any ambiguity. Can you tell me where is my thinking going wrong here? And on what other grounds can I eliminate the 2nd option?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

@@ishansahay5726 Yeah, this is one of the questions that came to mind when I wrote that it's possible for a pronoun to precede its antecedent on the GMAT. But I'm hard-pressed to think of many other official GMAT questions that have this same feature, so I deliberately didn't raise this issue in the video. Thanks to the principles we've discussed (both in this thread and in the video itself) the pronoun isn't really a useful decision point between (C) and (E) in this question. "They" is reasonably close to something (the men and women) that the pronoun could logically refer to. So the pronoun is OK, and you want to look for other decision points. From there, the distinctions between (C) and (E) are admittedly pretty subtle. This explanation might be worth a quick read: tinyurl.com/5n89ztz6. But it's a hard question, so don't worry about it too much. I hope that helps a bit!

[@ishansahay5726]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Yeah, now after reading your view on the gmatclub it's pretty clear that E is a red flag, without the comma after adulthood it seems like it 'by the time..' is a part of 'had been attacked..', or it could also modify the preceding clause nonsensically. Inserting the 'who' before 'were born...' definitely makes it wordier, and if the who is inserted, it probably makes that relative clause a non essential, so it would be better preceded by a comma, and finally, I'd learnt about prepositional phrases in a modifier mistakes video by another prep instructor Erica on youtube, and learnt that prepositional phrases can act as adjectives or adverbs, this one is probably an adverb, and when they act as adverbs, they can modify the *entire* clause before or after, so here in E, it seems like either the prepositional phrase 'by the time...' will modify just 'had been attacked...', leaving the other essential part out of context, or it will modify what precedes it, leaving the 'had been attacked..' out of context. "by the time..' has been stuffed in between the subject (the people) and the verb (had been attacked). Thanks a ton for the clarification. Gmatninja is literally the best out there!

[@sandeepshetty1909]

Hey Charles Thanks for these amazing series. I have a doubt in the last example. In the sentence Subject is "Nobody" which is singular we can confirm that through the verb "knows" But isn't it wrong when the sentence uses "those who have" because here "have" makes the subject plural right?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Are you thinking that the pronoun "those" needs to refer back to "nobody"? That wouldn't actually make sense here, because we're not saying that "nobody" has tried to count the number of languages. The sentence is clearly saying that some people have actually tried to count. I think I see where you're coming from, though: in most cases, the pronoun "those" will have a plural antecedent somewhere in the sentence. This sentence is a rare exception: "those" basically means "those people", even though the word "people" isn't stated anywhere in the sentence. You won't see this sort of thing very often in GMAT questions, but notice that they didn't make an issue of it at all: "those" is used in the same way in all five answer choices. So it's not a problem at all here, and the GMAT is basically inviting you to focus on other decision points. :) I hope that helps!

[@dalalalhaa]

and if one arm is lost, it quickly replaces it ( there should be a comma?)

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

It's a good question, Yanni. Technically speaking, there's no need for a comma there, but a writer can choose to include a comma to add extra clarity to the sentence, even if it isn't strictly required. As a writer, I might personally prefer to include the comma in this situation, but another writer might disagree. It's just a question of style in this case. More importantly: this isn't the sort of thing that you need to worry about on GMAT SC. The GMAT rarely tests comma usage, and in the (very rare) instances when comma usage appears as an issue on SC, it doesn't look at all like this situation. Here, the meaning isn't changed one bit when you remove or add the comma. So it's purely a stylistic thing, and isn't something they'll test you on. So if you find yourself debating whether a comma should appear in a particular sentence, try to shift your focus to other issues -- the comma is almost never a deciding factor, so you should look for other decision points first. I hope that helps a bit!

[@vishaljha4078]

Hey great video, just wondering in last question , option D and E are also wrong since Between must use “and” to compare and not “or”

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Agreed -- it doesn't really make sense to say that it's hard to distinguish between a language OR its dialects. I didn't emphasize that in the video, since the pronouns give us enough to work with, and the pronouns are arguably a quicker way to eliminate answer choices here. But you're correct that "or" doesn't work in this context. I hope that helps a bit!

[@vishaljha4078]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Awesome, thanks a lot! By the way really loving every single video, if I ever get a good GMAT score, I’ll be more than happy to write any testimonial!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

@@vishaljha4078 Thank you so much! I'm glad that you're enjoying the videos. Thank you again for taking the time to write to us, and keep us posted on your progress!

[@GaneshAyyappan-hk9mr]

Hey Charles! in the starfish question - options C,D,E end with overcompensating and do not have the "and" at the end to lead up to next part of the sentence, which starts with "growing" Is this a good reasoning to eliminate those 3 first? I understand this might not come under pronouns or their rules but I tried using the first step of your strategy - eliminate definite errors. PS - thanks for this video series! much love!!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you for the kind words, Ganesh! I'm glad that the videos have helped a bit so far. It's definitely worth noticing that distinction between two parallel actions in (A) and (B) ("overcompensating" and "growing") and the structure in (C), (D), and (E), which seems to use "growing" as a modifier. You can think of it this way: in (A) and (B), “overcompensating” and “growing” are two parallel actions. So the animal sometimes does two things: it overcompensates and it grows an extra arm or two. That makes sense, right? In (C), (D), and (E), “growing” has been turned into a modifier. (E), for example, includes the phrase “sometimes with the animal overcompensating, growing an extra arm or two” and that seems a little bit odd to me. When do you ever see an "-ing" participle modifying another "-ing" participle? I'm not saying that it's WRONG or that this construction violates some absolute rule, but it seems confusing in this case. Meaning-wise, I suppose you could argue that “growing” tells us extra information about when happens when the animal is “overcompensating”, but I think the sentence is clearer in this case if the two actions (“growing” and “overcompensating”) are parallel. That said, I definitely wouldn't overreact to this issue, at least not in this particular question. Whenever you're not 100% sure about something like this, be conservative, hang onto the answer choices, and look for other decision points. Fortunately, we have plenty of other things to look at in the starfish question. I hope that helps a bit!

[@GaneshAyyappan-hk9mr]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring thanks charles, I got it. I over reacted by eliminating C,D,E right away and was fortunately saved by B. However, its better to hang around and go for the best suitable.

[@johndoe12324]

For the dinosaur tracks example, is the word "their" a possessive adjective or a pronoun? Sometimes, part of speech analysis gets confusing for me.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

"Their" is a possessive pronoun. But don't worry too much about the terminology -- the GMAT isn't going to ask you to label these things. As long as you understand what that word is doing -- and why it creates a meaning problem in a couple of the answer choices -- you're in good shape. Don't lose sleep over the jargon, unless you happen to enjoy it. :) I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@gourav8846]

A consumers and Consumers question...there is change a change in the noun/Subject ...why are we not changing the verb form (think)?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

In that question, "think" is preceded by a helping verb ("may"), so you'd only need to worry about conjugating the helping verb to match the subject. But "may" is the same regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural --"they may think" and "he may think" are both correct. So no change is needed here. I hope that helps!

[@ItachiUchiha-ge6em]

great work, very well explained!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much, Itachi! I'm happy that we could help a bit. Have fun studying!

[@EmilAliev-rf7ov]

Excellent course

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you so much!

[@don2100]

can anyone tell me if these videos are enough in terms of theory for SC

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Yup, these videos are designed to cover all of the knowledge and techniques you really need for SC. So if you can master everything we teach in the full SC series, you'll be in great shape. Have fun studying!

[@varunkhanna9061]

Dear Team, Firstly, thanks for the video! I had a small query in the last question. Doesn't "and" v/s "or" change the meaning of the sentence?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Yes, you're 100% correct -- the "or" definitely does change the meaning in that last question. It doesn't really make sense to say that we're "distinguishing between (one thing) OR (another thing)". We'd need an "and" in this situation. I didn't mention it in the video because the focus of the video is pronouns. But you're correct: in this particular case, you could argue that (D) and (E) are illogical, and can be eliminated because of the use of "or". I hope that helps!

[@pbs201]

how do you correct the 1st cookie sentence?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

You'd have to replace "they" with something that actually makes sense, like "the staff" or "the cashiers." The use of a pronoun in that sentence isn't great.

[@leftblank2901]

Last question on video #2. Why is B not a correct answer? underlined section begins with "and" which is referring to languages AND their sublanguages..compared to D&E, this begins with an "or" which doesn't make sense when comparing two things. Therefore B is better choice than A when it could refer to an something that is singular.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

We could probably argue that the hardest part of Q5 is figuring out what, exactly, this sentence is trying to say. In case it helps, think of it this way: any individual language can have sub-languages (or dialects) within it. If we're trying to count the number of languages in the world, it's hard to distinguish clearly between an individual language and that language's own sub-languages (or dialects). With that in mind, here's (B) again, inserted into the full sentence: (B) Nobody knows exactly how many languages there are in the world, partly because of the difficulty of distinguishing between a language and the sub-languages or dialects within THEM, with those who have tried counting typically finding... The use of "them" causes all sorts of trouble here. "Them" could refer to "sub-languages" or "dialects" (or both), but that gives us nonsense: what the heck does it mean to have sub-languages (or dialects) within sub-languages? I suppose you could argue that "them" refers back to "languages" earlier in the sentence, but that's awfully confusing at best, and arguably not terribly logical: the difficulty is distinguishing between each INDIVIDUAL language and its own sub-languages/dialects. Finally, I would be careful not to assume that "or" is automatically wrong in a situation like this. Sure, the sentence is trying to say that it's difficult to distinguish between one thing (a language) AND something else (sub-languages/dialects). The "something else" (sub-languages or dialects) just happens to contain an "or". And that's fine. I hope that helps a bit!

[@leftblank2901]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring thank you. I'm still trying to navigate the nuances to sentence correction, never been good at it. Thanks for the detailed help.

[@HarshSingh-zf7tw]

Hi Charles, first of all huge appreciation for all of your hard work, secondly can 'they' refer to 'arms' from '5-8 arms'? since we are finding all the probable nouns for pronouns in focus.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you for the kind words, Harsh! Sure, since "arms" is plural, "they" could refer to "arms." But I don't think that possibility really changes anything. I'll leave that part up to you: see what happens if you imagine that "they" refers to "arms." Does it change your answer at all? :) I hope that helps a bit!

[@marccepeci2980]

Shouldn't the fix simply be: DinosaurS' tracks show them walking with their feet directly under their bodies. Please let me know. Perhaps the previous sentence is not a correction because DinasaurS' tracks is a possessive noun which is an adjective?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Sure, the pronouns would be fine in your version of the sentence: "Dinosaurs' tracks show them walking with their feet directly under their bodies." "Them" and "their" would refer back to "dinosaurs", and that's fine. I would probably argue that the meaning still wouldn't be as clear as in the correct answer (do the tracks actually show "dinosaurs walking", or do they show "that dinosaurs walked"?), but we don't need to spend our time on that here. Related: I wouldn't spend too much time concocting alternate versions of SC answer choices. GMAT SC asks you to pick the best among five specific options -- and sometimes, that "best" answer is far from perfect, or the second-best answer isn't all that bad. So don't worry too much about alternate ways to rewrite sentences -- just choose the best among the ones you're given, and don't waste too much time on alternatives. To be fair: in the video, we gave you a very shortened version of the original question, and it's fair to wonder whether there were other options available. In the official version, "dinosaurs' tracks" isn't in any of the five options. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@marccepeci2980]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Does the Gmat allow pronouns to refer to a noun that has an apostrophe ?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

@@marccepeci2980 Sure, there's nothing inherently wrong with a pronoun that refers back to a possessive noun. In your example with the dinosaurs' tracks, there's nothing else those pronouns can refer to, and the plural pronouns correctly refer to a plural antecedent. So the pronouns themselves are fine.

[@matiascamacho571]

Hi! first of all, thanks for these videos!! Im really improving my SC! One question of an OG question: "Although Elizabeth Barrett Browning's success was later overshadowed by that of her husband, among her contemporaries she was considered the better poet." This is correct considering the OG explanation. But from what I heard in the video, there's an antecedent problem with "her" because "Elizabeth's success" is not a valid antecedent for "her". Can you please explain why that sentence is correct?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Great question, Matias! That SC question about Elizabeth Barrett Browning has caused plenty of confusion over the years. The main takeaway from the video is that if you have a pronoun, you'll want to look for something reasonable that it could refer to. Beyond that, you don't want to overthink things. Ambiguity isn't as big a deal as it might seem, and there are a ton of other made-up pronoun "rules" floating around on the internet, none of which are absolute rules at all. (I mention a bunch of those "not-actually-rules" briefly in the video, but don't discuss any of them in detail. The point of that little rant is that they aren't worth worrying about.) In the sentence you've quoted, there's absolutely no problem. "Her" is a possessive pronoun, and it makes perfect sense for "her" to refer back to "Elizabeth's", which is a possessive, female noun. No issues there. I hope that helps a bit, and please don't be shy if that doesn't clear things up!

[@naveenpatil158]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Hey Charles, continuing on this topic, I think i saw an example on youtube by Magoosh along the lines of " Tolstoy's Anna karenina brought him fame an respect" where they say it is grammatically wrong. Would you say that the sentence is correct as him refers back to Tolstoy even though he is not explicitly mentioned but only his book is mentioned? The reason, I ask this is to confirm if it is ALWAYS ok to use possessive as the antecedent or are there exceptions? PS: Thanks for the awesome video, real informative

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

@@naveenpatil158 Yes, I would say that the sentence is fine as-is. There's a reasonably clear antecedent for "him" in the general vicinity, and the pronoun doesn't cause any real confusion. So you'd want to move on to other issues. That said, I would be very, very careful not to overgeneralize with this sort of thing. Could this sort of construction cause confusion? Under the right (wrong?) circumstances, it probably could. It's not grammatically WRONG, necessarily, to have a non-possessive pronoun refer back to a possessive antecedent. But if it creates some sort of goofy meaning or lack of clarity, it could, in theory, be a problem. That's why I advocate keeping it simple: when you see a pronoun, check to see if there's something else in the sentence that it could reasonably refer back to. If there is, move on to other issues. Sometimes ambiguity can be a tiebreaker of sorts, but on your first pass through an SC question, just make sure that the pronoun has a reasonable referent somewhere, and that's it. I hope that helps a bit!

[@aayushchakraborty2737]

I don't understand in consumers question how b is a correct answer

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Charles explains why should choose (B) over (A) in this question from about 13:25 in the video. Check that out and let us know if you have any further questions! I hope that helps!

[@R9393b]

For the Panera bread example, what would you replace 'they' with? We speak like this all the time in real life, so its a tad surprising this is wrong. You wouldnt be able to say it offers me. So this is an example where a pronoun is not actually able to be used? You would have to say 'the company offers me' or 'the restaurant/cafe offers me' (im not sure what panera bread is exactly!)

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

I agree with you: we say this sort of thing all the time in real life, and it really doesn't cause any confusion. The GMAT isn't real life, though. ;) You have the right idea: if my silly little example were to appear on the GMAT, the correct answer might say "the restaurant offers me..." or "the cashier offers me..." Or something like that. You'd have a pretty clear choice between answer choices with a problematic "they" and answer choices that don't have a messy pronoun. I hope that helps a bit! If you're ever in the US and see a Panera Bread restaurant, please think of me. I like bread. ;)

[@R9393b]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring haha great, thanks!

[@kyamicayolla7570]

YOU ARE A GOD

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Haha, thank you! That's definitely not what my wife calls me, but I'm grateful for the kind words. Have fun studying!

[@agrimgarg9417]

Thankyou GMAT Ninja ! A total of how many episodes are being planned for SC?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

At the moment, we have 18 episodes in the works, but there's always a chance that we'll add or combine a few as the series moves forward. Enjoy, and have fun studying!

[@kartikmadan9025]

hey! Gmat ninja , I have been preparing since quite a few months and still fell that CR spins My head . Though, I have my GMAT next month and would appreciate If you could help me through it! Looking forward to insightful sessions, Much love from India!

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you for visiting our little corner of KZbin, Kartik! This link includes all of our GMAT videos from a couple of different KZbin channels: www.gmatninja.com/videos/gmat. Maybe that will help a bit? Good luck with your studies, we're rooting for you!

[@kartikmadan9025]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Thankyou so much for the support! Big Admiration for Charles! I have gone through each and every verbal lecture of yours, you're sensational

[@elsa21st]

Pronouns : it/its, she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs * connect the identified pronoun with a subject

[@03ashubham1]

Can't we eliminate they for starfish straight forward?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

"Starfish" (and a handful of other words, including "deer", "sheep", "aircraft", etc.) is the same whether it's singular or plural. So "they" could certainly refer back to "starfish", and you don't want to immediately eliminate an answer choice just because it includes "they". For a noun like "starfish", you'll have to consider the context to determine whether the noun is singular or plural. I hope that helps!

[@faizullahbiswas1053]

💙💙💙💙💙💙

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@TylerLeas]

Doing this made me realize how bad I am at English, even though I am a native speaker...

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

That's exactly that feeling that most Americans have when they first encounter sentence correction! I'm not sure if you're from the US originally, but very few schools teach grammar anymore in the US -- so this stuff can be jarring. (And for the record, I never learned English grammar in school, either. Most schools stopped teaching it by the 1980s.) Anyway, if you're a grammar-averse native speaker, you'll eventually break through on SC if you put in enough time and effort. And if you REALLY struggle on SC (or absolutely despise it after a bit of studying), you'll have the option of taking the new, SC-free version of the GMAT by sometime this fall. More details on that here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e6nFlpR3jKiahbc. Have fun studying, Tyler!

[@DerahAchieves]

I confused