一道真题供讨论

LES

又看了一遍这题，突然让偶有加减或乘除运算的先后顺序问题：

a of b, c, and d of e,

请问大家这里前后两个of的归属问题，哪个包含哪个，哪个又先于哪个？

雪落无声

C)that dramatically reduced costs, confidentiality, and resonably quick resolution of disputes
(D)that confidentiality, dramatically reduced costs, and a resonably quick resolution of disputes
这里有没有可能出现这样的歧义？

dramatically reduced costs, confidentiality, and resonably quick resolution of disputes

看这题

1.        Water and resource management problems will be at the head of the legislature’s list of concerns for the coming session.

(A) Water and resource management problems

(B) Problems of managing water and resources

(C) Problems in the management of water and other resources

(D) Problems of water and other resource management（C）

(E) Resource management problems, including water

C

这种出现of 的题，怎样避免歧义呐？

雪落无声

ding

X_TonY_X

Good to see heated discussions here.

It's a close judgment call, but not too close to call.  I would go with D.

LES

Tony, 看看雪落无声和偶的问题吧! 谢谢!

雪落无声

ding NN帮帮忙好吗？

dashasha

我选D，选项B和C都会造成弃义。

LES

dashasha mm, C为什么会造成歧义呢？C与D的差异只是D中多了一个a啊？偶查过字典resolution既可作可数名词又可作不可数名词。偶认为这里是不可数名词的意思。谢谢！

(C)that dramatically reduced costs, confidentiality, and resonably quick resolution of disputes
(D)that confidentiality, dramatically reduced costs, and a resonably quick resolution of disputes

X_TonY_X

I think it is of prime importance that we pay close attention to the the inherent logic; still, we should be wary about potentially overextending the scope.  With regard to choice B, I 'd refrain from elaborating on the logical legitimacy of using "reduced costs" here; instead, thanks to a friend, an example put forward below may do the job:

Contrary to earlier conjectures, it may be that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels would cool the globe by reducing the amount of solar energy absorbed by snow

I believe the underlined part is kind of self-explanatory.

As to choice C, both using and omitting the 'a' before resolution are OK. That said, in D the order in which the three elements are arranged is so clear and neat that not even the slightest ambiguity is generated.

mariezhu

I got a question about D. In this sentence, if it is ok to put an article, about which I have a serious dout, before the third element in the comparison, can we just violate the parallelism by omiting the other two necessary articles before the first two elements?