bschool_guru

E is correct because of tense ?

E reads as tho "mother" is the eldest child ..

agree with scoot

can you put your question in a better understandable form ? I am sure if you picked up this question from somewhere it was not as unclear ..

Consider each couple as a group. So there are 5C3 ways of selecting. But of these one person needs to be slected from each group. There are two ways of doing that from each group. thus the total number is 5C3*(2x2x2) = 80

C. was a well-established method of mineral extraction -- this is unidiomatic to say "mineral extraction as early as" -- "established" here is not a verb here. D. was a well-established method of extracting mineral that was E. had been a method of mineral extraction, well established -- verb closer to as early as .. The question is : was leaching avilable ("was" ) early as 18th century or was it well-established as early as 18th century ? I think the sentence is trying to say latter and do E meets that and not C. can anyone tell what the OA is ? 800bob -- even C gives an impression that leaching mineral extraction was in the past. Unless you use present perfect you can not really express that it continues in the present. None of the choices do that.

B it is

I would say "E" for the first one .... D doesnt make sense. C is not good because it does not maintian the time line -- using past perfect helps as in E

1. normal -- wrong comparison -- normal is not a grasshopper or insect 2. is normal -- seems correct 3. was normal -- again wrong comparison and "was" 4. they normally are .. "they" ? who they ? Note " A grasshopper" not grasshopperS. 5. they are normally .. same as 4

yes amitraj, I remember that discussion ;-) The answer is B

I almost picked B but it should be D because "have" in B is wrong.

yep. it is the "appositive" after comma

I dont agree with your at least notation. I would say at least [ >= ] at most is [ When I say I want at least 2 apples -- that means I dont mind 3, 4, 5 ..... When I say I want at most 4 apples -- that means you may give me 4, 3,2,1 or none. Agree ?

amitraj you probably missed my point -- I totally agree with the difference between "as great as" and "as great as or greater than" and "greater than". My point was that C is wrong for a different reason than you state. Also, I believe that "at least as great as" is NOT the same as "as great as". I contend that. at least as great as = as great as or greater than ... Or using your example the below sentnces ARE EQUIVALENT: ( X > = tallest person ) X is at least as tall as the tallest person in the class X is as tall as or taller than the tallest person in the class.

shri -- you are right about the rule, BUT "now commonly called" is NOT past tense. "-ed" does not necessarily make things past sentence.