{"id":1917,"date":"2011-04-25T08:36:36","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T13:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manhattangre.com\/blog\/?p=1917"},"modified":"2019-08-30T16:49:33","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:49:33","slug":"idioms-for-reading-comp-not-x-let-alone-y","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/blog\/idioms-for-reading-comp-not-x-let-alone-y\/","title":{"rendered":"Idioms for Reading Comp: Not X, Let Alone Y"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Bruzowski Company’s competitor to the iPad, the $uperKoolTablet, isn’t ___________, let alone ubiquitous.<\/em><\/p>\n

WIthout knowledge of the idiom “Not X, let alone Y” (as well as the word ubiquitous<\/a>), many people would have a hard time filling in the blank in the sentence above.<\/p>\n

This idiom is also precisely the sort of thing that leads people to not quite understand what they’re reading in Reading Comp. Many students say to themselves, “Why is the word alone<\/i> in this sentence?”, but then they’re not sure what to look up, so they just let it go … and possibly miss a question.<\/p>\n

“Not X, let alone Y” \u201c Not X and definitely not this even more extreme thing, Y<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For instance:<\/p>\n

Our remaining funds are not<\/strong><\/em> enough to get us through the week, let alone<\/strong><\/em> enough to pay next month’s payroll.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this sentence, getting through the week is less expensive than next month’s payroll, so if we can’t afford the cheaper thing, we definitely can’t afford the more expensive thing.<\/p>\n

In the sentence about the $uperKoolTablet, the word in the blank should be a lesser form of ubiquitous<\/a> (existing everywhere). Thus, a good fill-in for the blank would be “popular” or “widely available.”<\/p>\n

The expressions “not to mention”<\/em> and “much less”<\/em> can be used in the same way:<\/p>\n

I signed up for this GRE class because I have no memory of ever learning geometry, not to mention<\/strong><\/em> quadratic equations.<\/p>\n

You let that man give you mouth-to-mouth after you ran out of breath at the pool? That guy doesn’t even know CPR, much less<\/strong><\/em> is he a “world class doctor.” He just likes to hang out at the pool and offer people mouth-to-mouth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bruzowski Company’s competitor to the iPad, the $uperKoolTablet, isn’t ___________, let alone ubiquitous. WIthout knowledge of the idiom “Not X, let alone Y” (as well as the word ubiquitous), many people would have a hard time filling in the blank in the sentence above. This idiom is also precisely the sort of thing that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-1917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-comp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7263,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917\/revisions\/7263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1917"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}