Comparison

Comparison Signals

• Most Important - Like, unlike, as and then
• Others - more than, less than, different from, as adj as, the same as

Like vs As

• Like
• Like is a preposition, so it must be followed by nouns, pronouns, or noun phrase
• Never put a clause or a prepositional phrase after like
• like compares two nouns
• like can be followed by gerunds(-ing forms used as nouns): like swimming, skiing is great exercise
• As
• as can either be a preposition(appearing with a noun) or a conjunction(appearing with a clause)
• use as to compare two clauses, like cannot be used to compare clauses: As(not Like) her brother did, Amrita aced the test

Comparative and Superlative form

• Use comparative form when comparing 2 things and use superlative to compare more than two things
• Add more to adverbs ending in -ly to make it comparative
• Don't use comparative adjective unless you have a than in the sentence

"Tense mood & voice"

• Simple Present: eternal states/frequent events
• Present Progressive: action happening right now/don't use for general definition/don't use to indicate future action
• Verbs that expresses general states do not normally take progressive form
•  Keep all verb tenses consistent, unless the meaning clearly dictates otherwise
• Use past progressive to describe a background event, while using simple past to describe a more important event in the foreground: She was playing with her friends when the babysitter arrived.
• Present perfect tense is used for actions that started in the past but continue into the present
• Present Perfect = have/has + past participle
• Present Perfect: Continued action or Continued effect
• Don't use present perfect for specific, completed time periods
• If two actions in a sentence occurred at different times in the past, we often use the Past Perfect tense for the earlier action and Simple Past for the later action
• Past Perfect = had + past participle
• A sequence of verb with the same subject does not require PAST perfect
• Clauses linked by and or but do not require the PAST Perfect as a general rule
• The use of words such as before and after indicate the sequence of events clearly and emphatically enough to make the use of Past Perfect unnecessary
• Do not use Perfect Tenses when Simple Tenses will do
• Reporting
• Simple Present becomes Simple Past
• Simple Past becomes Past Perfect
• Simple Future becomes Conditional Tense (would+base form of verb)
• The usual sequences in reporting are: Present + Future / Past + Conditional
• Moods
• Indicative Mood express facts
• Imperative Mood express command
• Subjunctive Mood
• Hypothetical Subjunctive: Unlikely or unreal condition (usually after if or similar word)
• this form occurs after if, as if, as though
• The basic form of the Hypothetical Subjunctive is equivalent to the simple past of every verb, with one exception
• exception: for the verb to be, the form were is always used
• IF-THEN Constructions
• no uncertainty- if present, then present - equivalent to whenever
• some uncertainty - if present, then can/may
• case in future with no uncertainty - if present, then future
• unlikely case (in the future) - if hypothetical subjunctive, then conditional(would) - could can be used to indicate improbability as well
• case that never happened (in the past) - if past perfect, then conditional perfect
• The helping verbs would and should should never go in the if part of the sentence
• Command Subjunctive: Proposals, desires, and requests formed with certain verbs and the word that. It is used with certain Bossy Verbs, such as require/propose.
• The verb form used is known as Bare Form: the infinitive (to be, to disband) without the to. The bare form is like the simple present with 2 exceptions
• there is no s on the end for 3rd person singular
• to be is always be not is, are, or am
• Subjunctive construction: Bossy Verb+THAT+subject+Command Subjunctive - We propose that the school board disband
• Bossy Verb want, cannot use Command Subjunctive, but rather an infinitive (to + the bare form)- The president wants her to go to the retreat
• Common verbs that take only the command subjunctive: demand, dictate, insist, mandate, propose, recommend, request, stipulate, suggest
• Verbs that take only the infinitives: advise, allow, forbid, persuade, want
• Verbs that take either the command subjunctive or the infinitive: ask, beg, intend, order, prefer, urge, require
• prohibit takes other construction altogether: The agency prohibited Gary from working on weekends
• command subjunctive can also be used with nouns derived from Bossy Verbs, such as a demand/ a request
• A command subjunctive is possible with It is Y, in which Y is an adjective, such as essential, that conveys urgency(advisable, crucial, desirable, fitting, imperative, important, mandatory, necessary, preferable, urgent and vital - infinitives can also be used in these constructions)
• avoid command subjunctive after whether
• Active and Passive Voice 
• In active voice, the subject performs the action and in passive voice, the subject has an action performed on it by someone/ something else
• Passive voice is formed with a form of the verb to be, followed by the past participle.
• Whoever actually performs the action may follow the verb headed by the preposition by
•  Use by for the actual doers, use through/ because of when you want to describe any instrument or means, which might be an awkward subject in active voice
• Only Transitive verbs(that take direct objects) can be written in passive voice

Modifiers

A modifier describes someone or something in a sentence.

• Adjective and Adverb
• Adjectives, not adverbs, follow linking verbs like feel
• These adjective do not modify the verb but rather identify a quality with the noun subject
• There are two grammatically correct phrasings - adj+adj+noun and adv+adj+noun

• Noun Modifiers
• Phrases and clauses that modifies nouns or pronouns are called Noun Modifiers
• A noun used to modify another noun is called Appositive
• A noun and its modifier should touch each other
•  Misplaced modifiers are those which are not placed touching the noun it is referring but placed touching to some other noun
• Dangling modifiers are those where the noun which it is modifying is not present
• Possessive nouns should not be used where modifiers are attached
• Noun modifiers are often introduced by Relative Pronoun such as which, that, who, whose, whom, where, when. Such modifiers are called Relative Clauses.
• Who and whom must modify people, which must modify thing.
• In GMAT, that cannot modify people
• whose can modify either people or things
• which or whom sometimes follow preposition
• who is subject of the verb whereas whom is used as the object of the verb or of a preposition
• that/whom can be dropped when the modified noun is the object of the modifying clause
• where modifies a noun place, it cannot modify a metaphorical place, such as condition, situation, case, circumstances, or arrangements. In these cases, in which can be used
• when/in which can be used to modify a noun event or time
• Essential Modifiers provide necessary information whereas Non-essential Modifiers provide additional information. Commas between non essential modifiers and their nouns and no commas for essential modifiers. Which and commas for non essential whereas that and no commas for essential modifier

• Verb Modifiers
• It modify verbs
•  It may not touch the verb
• Use which only to refer to the noun immediately preceding it - never to refer an entire clause
• The -ing form can be used to modify an entire clause
• This use of -ing form works best when you want to express the result of the main clause

Pronouns

When you see a pronoun,

• find antecedent - noun of that pronoun,
• make sure it makes sense,
• that it is the only possible antecedent, and
• it agrees in number

Pronoun case

1. Subject pronouns - I, you, he, she, it, we, they, who
2. Object pronouns - me, you, him, her, it, us, them, whom
3. Possessive pronouns - my/mine, your/yours, his, her/hers, its, our/ours, their/theirs, whose

Famous (for mistake) Five: It, Its, They, Them, Their

• It and its - singular
• They, them and their - plural
• 'Their' problem - eg. "Whenever a student calls, take down their grievances" is wrong, the correct form is "Whenever a student calls, take down his or her grievances"

4Ths - This, That, These, Those

• use any as adjective in front of a noun
• use that/those to indicate a "copy" of the meaning of antecedent word (not the same thing)
• it/they mean the same actual thing as the antecedent
• that/those must agree in number with the previous version, otherwise you must change number by repeating the noun
• do not use this/these in place of nouns
• also do not use that/those in place of nouns unless you modify that/those
• use it/they/them instead.

Subject Verb agreement

In a correct sentence

1. Subject and verb must both exist- eg. These proposals were approved during the board meeting, "Proposals" is subject here and "approved" is verb of the subject. Let us take another example - The bridge named in 2002 - "named"   here is not a working verb, because named here is past participle and can not be a working verb on its own, but if we tweak the above fragment a bit - The bridge was named in 2002 - we have a working verb her - "was named". Let us consider another fragment - "Because the pen was never mine" - "because" is a connecting word and "the pen was mine" is the Main Clause (A clause can stand as a sentence containing a subject and verb). The word "because" makes the main clause a subordinate clause, thus making the whole a fragment.
2. Subject and verb must agree in number: Subject and verb must either both be singular or plural.
3. Of course they must make sense together

AND vs Additive phrase

• The word and can unite 2 or more singular subjects, forming a compound plural subject
• Many other additive phrase such as along with, in addition to, as well as, including etc can "add" to a subject but unlike and they do not form compound subject and therefore cannot change the number of subject
• Only the word and can change a singular subject into a plural one

OR, EITHER ... OR and NEITHER ... NOR

•   These phrases link nouns, so if both their numbers are same then no problem in deciding the verb form but if one noun is singular and other is plural then the noun closer to verb decides the verb form.
• When the words either or neither are in sentence alone (without or or nor), they are considered singular and take only singular verbs

COLLECTIVE NOUNS (agency, army, audience, class, committee, crowd, orchestra, team, baggage, citrus, equipment, fleet, fruit, furniture etc) are almost always singular

INDEFINITE PRONOUNS

• Indefinite pronouns such as anyone, anybody, anything, no one, nobody, nothing, someone, somebody, something, everyone, everybody, everything (ending in -one, -body, -thing), whatever, whoever, each, every are considered singular and require singular verb form.
• There are however, 5 indefinite pronouns - ASMAN (Any, Some, More/Most, All, None) - that can be either singular or plural depending on context. The 'Of-phrase' decides the number of ASMAN(you may appreciate it if you are a seinfeld freak) eg. Some of the speakers were there.
• Technically, none of + plural noun can take either a singular or a plural verb form. But not one is always singular.

EACH and EVERY

• Any subject preceded by the word each or every is singular, eg. Every dog and cat has paws.
• The word each following a subject has no bearing on the verb form, eg. They each are great tennis player.

QUANTITY WORDS and PHRASES

• The phrase The number of takes singular verb, but A number of takes a plural verb.
• In many idiomatic expressions that designate quantities or parts, the subject of the sentence is in an Of-prepositional phrase, eg. Half of the slices are already gone.
• The words majority, minority and plurality, are either singular (if totality is indicated) or plural (if individual part of the totality is indicated).

That is all for today, Parallelism next

Helping Verbs

These are the helping verbs we will be dealing with - may, will, must and should.

will: certain
may: uncertain
must: absolutely necessary
should: morally obligated
would: hypothetical

Examples for
Certain: Mamata Banerjee will do anything to enhance her political image.
Uncertain: The truth may well lie in between.
Absolutely Necessary: Private sector must support scientific research too.
Morally Obligated: There are entirely legitimate debates to be conducted on when the West should leave Afghanistan
Hypothetical: ...left to themselves, people would make rational choices.

Tricky words

1. Economical means thrifty, efficient and Economic means monetary
2. Aggravate means worsen and aggravating means irritating
3. known as means named and known to be means acknowledged as
4. loss of means no longer in possession of and loss in means decline in value
5. mandate means command and have a mandate means to have authority from voters
6. native of means person from and native to means species that originated in
7. range of means variety of and ranging means varying
8. rate of means speed or frequency of and rates for means prices for
9. rise means general increase and raise means a bet or a salary increase
10. such as means for instance and like means similar to
11. try to do means seek to accomplish and try doing means experimenting with