Curse

Relambrien · Nov 06, 2006, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Here's how I think of it.

In the sentence, the words "very difficult" imply that the ideas are not able to be understood. However, the "but" refutes this. Going by this, "a few" is most likely the best answer.

"His ideas are very difficult, but a few people understand them." The "but" refutes the assumption that the ideas are too difficult to be understood, saying that a few people understand them.

Going by grammar, however, "many" also fits.

"His ideas are very difficult, but many people understand them." This says the exact same thing as the previous sentence, but with a different number of people. Logically, "a few" makes more sense, but grammatically, either works.

The real difficulty here is that the question is not fully explained. It does not ask what word fits best logically, grammatically, etc. It just asks what word fits best, and the word "best" can be interpreted to mean many different things: best logically, best grammatically, etc. It's really the question's fault.

But I know how idiotic English teachers can sometimes be...here's an example.

"The bull was really angry, and let out a(n) _______ at the cowboy it had knocked off."

My English teacher thought that the "(n)" meant "noun," when it really is saying "a or an," in order to avoid revealing whether the blanked out word begins with a vowel or consonant sound. To this day my teacher doesn't get it.

Sergio Leone · Nov 06, 2006, 04:15 AM // 04:15

A few works.

Few does not work.

Many works.

Mercury did the best job explaining it. His one about the pizza being hot describes why few doesn't work. I don't think the fact that very difficult is in there can legimately explain why few would work.

If it is "His ideas are very difficult, but a few people understand them." This implies that the ideas are difficult and even though they are difficult there are still a small amount of people who understand his very difficult ideas.

If it is "His ideas are very difficult, but many people understand them." This impies that why his ideas may be very difficult to the majority, many people can still comprehend the ideas.

It's all a numbers game. Both fit perfectly well. Mercury gave some great sentence examples on why it worked. I'm definately questioning my own english teacher on it though.

Divinitys Creature · Nov 06, 2006, 07:20 PM // 19:20

Yeah it's about the numbers. If you're talking about calculus, it's very hard to understand but thousands of people learn and understand it - "many" would fit here.

If you're talking about something highly specific like how spin-2 bosons have to be rotated through 360 degrees *twice* before they perceive the same universe then "a few" would be better :P

Mercury Angel · Nov 06, 2006, 07:40 PM // 19:40

Ha, true. Context is very important in establishing a 'correct' answer.
I think something everyone can agree on is that the statement is rather vague, and that either answer can be easily justified.

The important thing people need to remember is that having an answer is only half the battle. Being able to explain/justify it is equally important.

Of course, on a multiple choice test, that's mostly moot, and unless you were fortunate enough to get a teacher that's willing to talk about it and seriously consider your reasoning, it's just throwing an easy few grade points away.

My official state exit-test for math is marred permanently with one single question wrong because of my stubborness. A math question where the test writer obviously had issues with english. Technically, my answer choice was correct based on the grammar used, and the official answer was wrong. The tense they used to say a portion of the question was VERY important, and they screwed it up.
I knew it, and I penciled it in anyway, stubbornly.

Almost same deal in my college psych class, except I got a one-on-one with my professor after class. She refused to change the grade, but she conceded that the question WAS somewhat ambiguous. Though she also said the answer should, and was, clear to anyone who read the chapter and reviewed the lecture. (Which I did, I just 'overthought' the question)

That one was a bit more interesting. It was about the reward/reinforcement system, and to this day, I still think I was more right on it

Something about a little girl performing a task for a certain time period, and as a reward, she got to play outside. I said it was a fixed-ratio reinforcement system; She said it was a fixed-interval.
In my opinion, at best, it was a hybrid of the two. The action that resulted in the reward had a time aspect to it, but it was still a performed action that resulted in the reward. If she did X, she got Y. It just happened to be that the X had a time aspect tied to it.
Since I can't remember the question completely, I couldn't clarify it better, but you get the point. Sigh

Bloodied Blade · Nov 06, 2006, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Ok...a few things- If your english teacher created the sentence, he's using improper Grammar. The phrase "very difficult" is used to say that a task is difficult to accomplish. If you are referring to ideas or things that are not tasks, you usually use "very complicated".

"Many" is the word you are looking for if your teacher is after what I believe that he is. An idea can be complicated to the person it partains to but simple to others. The sentence should be-

"His ideas are very difficult, but many people understand them." The word "but" implies that the opposite of what would normally be true, in fact, is true (it takes what it should be without the "but" and makes it the opposite).

Complicated should still be used in place of the word difficult though.

If you wrote the answer without it being fill-in-the-blank, then the reason that the answer is wrong is b/c you used "very difficult" instead of very complicated.

I really need the full context of the sentence in order to tell you. It could've also been-

"His ideas are very difficult to understand, but many people understand them"

MirageCloud · Nov 12, 2006, 11:50 PM // 23:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bloodied Blade

Ok...a few things- If your english teacher created the sentence, he's using improper Grammar. The phrase "very difficult" is used to say that a task is difficult to accomplish. If you are referring to ideas or things that are not tasks, you usually use "very complicated".

"Many" is the word you are looking for if your teacher is after what I believe that he is. An idea can be complicated to the person it partains to but simple to others. The sentence should be-

"His ideas are very difficult, but many people understand them." The word "but" implies that the opposite of what would normally be true, in fact, is true (it takes what it should be without the "but" and makes it the opposite).

Complicated should still be used in place of the word difficult though.

If you wrote the answer without it being fill-in-the-blank, then the reason that the answer is wrong is b/c you used "very difficult" instead of very complicated.

I really need the full context of the sentence in order to tell you. It could've also been-

"His ideas are very difficult to understand, but many people understand them"

"His ideas are very difficult, but ... people understand them." is the way how it was noted on my question paper, I only needed to fill in the "...". The questions weren't in any context, just random questions where you would have to pick you answer from one of the possible ones stated earlier.