Of the boys

Hi teachers,

"Of the boys who do not reach their natural academic..." I looked "of" up in the Cambridge dictionary. I found its meaning. It is "about". Am I right?

Thanks.

I believe that it some cases it can be used as a synonym for about.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/of?s=t

Please write the complete sentence, Naeem.

Naeem Afzal said:

Of the boys who do not reach their natural academic boundary during the course of their college career.

Click to expand...

That sentence doesn't make sense.

Of the boys who do not reach their natural academic boundary during the course of their college career, but who fail to get through, there are two main classes: those who try, and those who do not try.

Naeem Afzal said:

Of the boys who do not reach their natural academic boundary during the course of their college career, but who fail to get through, there are two main classes: those who try, and those who do not try.

Click to expand...

Why didn't you post that earlier?

...in post #1, in fact.

Extracting the full sentence from you, Naeem, has been like pulling teeth.

To answer your question, 'about' wouldn't work.

Straightening out the inverted sentence, it reads 'There are two main classes of boys...who do not reach their natural academic boundary...'

You cannot replace 'of' with 'about'.

I agree 100% with Rover. And now I have my own question. What is natural academic boundary? (Full potential?)

Please remember that when we ask for a full sentence, we require every word from the first (starting with a capital letter) to the last, before (and including) the full stop.