stunn3r wrote:
mikemcgarry wrote:
Does all this answer your question?
Mike
too much .. too much new discoveries and i've my exam on 8th .. That did gave a knot in my head but I'll get to it .. need to read your reply 2-3 times .. These exceptions are killing me, every prep question I do is an exception to some rule, all the answers with "being" are correct .. being is supposed to me wrong 90% of the time but NO, I can just hope that I get questions on exceptions I learned ..
Thanks man ..
Dear
stunn3r,
I'm glad I could help. I wanted to point out --- you said, "
too much new discoveries", but as you may know, "
discoveries" are countable, so we would use "
many", not "
much." This is one set of rules for which there are really no exceptions --- it's one of the more purely mathematical rules of grammar. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... -vs-fewer/Countable nouns come in individual units --- you can have one, or two, or three, or etc. Cars, houses, books, sales, horses, discoveries, stars, baseball games, holidays, nations, trees, ideas ---- all these are countable nouns. If the noun can be singular or plural, that's a good hint that it's countable. For countable nouns, we use "
many", "
how many", "
number", "
more", and "
fewer".
Uncountable nouns are those things that come in contiguously undifferentiated masses, in bulk, without discernible pieces or parts. Time, space, air, water, meat, distance, weight, knowledge, truth, justice, freedom --- these are uncountable nouns. If the noun is always singular, no matter how much there is, that's a good indication that it's uncountable. For countable nouns, we use "
much", "
how much", "
amount", "
more", and "
less".
He has many books. He has much knowledge.
How many books does he have? How much knowledge does he have?
He bought a large number of books. He gained a large amount of knowledge.
He has more books than I do. He has more knowledge than I do.
I have fewer books than he does. I have less knowledge than he does. I will caution you --- while these countable/uncountable rules are very precise with essentially no exception, most grammar rules are not like this. Grammar is not mathematics --- clean and rigid and precise. Grammar reflects the oddities of living language.
I realize that your test is very soon, and I sincerely wish you all the best. If you do well, that's fantastic! If you don't do well, and want to take the GMAT a second time, then I am going to recommend that you READ --- read challenging English an hour a day, above and beyond any GMAT prep you are doing. Here's a blog about what to read:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-reading-list/You don't master grammar by memorizing rules. You master grammar by seeing it in context, and you only see this if you read regularly.
Let me know if you have any further questions in the next few days.
Mike