Question: Child Psychologists

Comment on Child Psychologists

wouldnt C be incorrect because there is no comma before will notice?
gmat-admin's picture

If you're comparing answer choice C with answer choice B, keep in mind that B has an "aside" phrase that starts with ", which."
As such, we need the second comma to separate that "aside" from the rest of the sentence.

With C, we don't need to use a comma along with the word THAT.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent,

What is the correct idiom in choice D?
gmat-admin's picture

The inclusion of FOR (as in FOR WHICH) is unidiomatic.
It should be either "routines THAT" or "routines, WHICH"

Hi Brent,

To elaborate on the issue with restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, this sentence would be considered incorrect.

The Sun that shines every day in the morning helps us stay warm.

As far as I understand restrictive clause beginning with "that" incorrectly implies that there is another Sun that can shine in the morning. Therefore the only option here is to use non-restrictive clause beginning with which:

The Sun, which shines every day in the morning, helps us stay warm.

The same problem appears her,

My classes in school, which are held on weekends, are very tedious. (here we imply that all of my classes are held on weekends)

My classes in school that are held on weekends are very tedious.(here we are talking about a subset of classes that are held on weekends and wich appear to be tedious)

Am I right?

BTW

Is there a version of non-restrictive clause that refers to people. I know that the only way is to use "who"

1.My mom who helps me with my homework is amazing. (I consider this sentence to be worng because for a heterosexual marriage there is only one biological mother, so why would I need to add specificity to the sentence)

2.My brother who is taller and older than me protects me from bullies. (here I need restrictive clause since I have to specify who is the brother to whome I refered to(maybe I have several brothers))

Is there a verion of the sentence 1. that can be wirten with non restricitive clause analogus to "wich" to make the sentence correct? In other words, how can I add additional information to the noun Mother so that it is not implying that I have two or more mothers?

I am cerious about what do you think?

Thank you in advance,
gmat-admin's picture

As I mention in the video regarding THAT vs WHICH (https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-sentence-correction/video/1165), it is quite unlikely that the correct answer of an SC question will depend solely on THAT vs WHICH.

Given this, one could even argue that the sentence "The Sun that shines every day in the morning helps us stay warm." is correct, since the author might be on a planet that has more than one sun. In such a case, THAT restricts the topic to the specific sun that shines in the morning.

My classes in school, which are held on weekends, are very tedious. (here we imply that all of my classes are held on weekends)
You're right. WHICH tells us that all of the school classes are held on weekends.

My classes in school that are held on weekends are very tedious.(here we are talking about a subset of classes that are held on weekends and which appear to be tedious)
Correct.

Your two other sentences concern vital/non-vital noun modifiers (covered here https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-sentence-correction/video/1166).

1. My mom who helps me with my homework is amazing.
The missing comma (after mom) tells us that "who helps me with my homework" is a vital noun modifier.
This means, out of all the different people the author refers to as "mom," we are restricting the conversation to the mom who helps with homework.

1b. My mom, who helps me with my homework, is amazing.
The comma after mom tells us that "who helps me with my homework" is a non-vital noun modifier.
This means, "who helps with homework" just provides extra information about MOM

2. My brother who is taller and older than me protects me from bullies.
The missing comma (after brother) tells us that "who is taller and older than me" is a vital noun modifier.
This means, out of all the author's brothers, we are restricting the conversation to the brother who is taller and older.

2b. My brother, who is taller and older than me, protects me from bullies.
The comma (after brother) tells us that "who is taller and older than me" is a non-vital noun modifier.
This means the author has only one brother, and "who is taller and older than me" just provides extra information about the brother

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent,

Thank you so much for your time,

Very nice and elaborate explanation,

Amazing job

I feel like my sense of SC is becoming much greater after watching these videos. Just finished the first 20 OG questions and I got 18/20 correct. however they are the simplest ones so I wouldn't be proud, anyways I will practice more, hoping I can make more sense of tackling challenging questions/
gmat-admin's picture

That's great news!

Office Hours

On December 20, 2023, Brent will stop offering office hours. 

Change Playback Speed

You have the option of watching the videos at various speeds (25% faster, 50% faster, etc). To change the playback speed, click the settings icon on the right side of the video status bar.

Have a question about this video?

Post your question in the Comment section below, and a GMAT expert will answer it as fast as humanly possible.

Free “Question of the Day” emails!