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I am reading a book on study skills.

On a page it says

Tend to coast along ‘in the middle’? You have the opportunity to test out how well you could do if you aim higher and adapt your strategy. How far do you want to go? What would hold you back from achieving more? Would you get more satisfaction out of your studies if you brought more to them?

My question: What is the last sentence mean? Especially the words more and them.

... brought more satisfaction or more other things?
And what does the word them refer to?

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    Would you get more satisfaction out of your studies if you brought more effort to them (your studies)?
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Feb 24, 2023 at 9:16
  • are they examples of "ellipsis in linguistics"?
    – Stats Cruncher
    Commented Feb 24, 2023 at 9:22
  • It doesn't work that way. 'Tend to coast along "in the middle" ' is neither a Question nor even a sentence by any rules of grammar, however idiomatic it might be. 'You have the opportunity to test out how well you could do if you aim higher and adapt your strategy' would have no bearing on the Question, even if was internally consistent which - sorry - it's not. How far do you want to go? What would hold you back from achieving more? Would you get more satisfaction out of your studies if you brought more to them?
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Feb 26, 2023 at 22:30

1 Answer 1

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'Them' refers to the studies.

'More' is often a determiner (eg 'more water', 'more food' etc) but can be used alone as a pronoun to substitute for something that does not need to be said because it is obvious, for example "go ahead and eat more", which obviously means more food. It can also be used more open-endedly, as in this case, to mean whatever you think it could mean. "Bring more" to something could mean 'more effort', or you could interpret it as something more specific like 'more thought', 'more preparation', or 'more positivity' - whatever quality you think you need to bring to enhance the studies.

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    Can you say "bring (more) effort to studies”? I thought it was put in more effort Is "bring more preparation to studies" idiomatic? In any case, what does one bring to enjoy more success? Surely spent more time studying is a better alternative? Don't you find the original sentence is poorly expressed? Am I the only one?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Feb 24, 2023 at 21:00
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    @Mari-LouA personally it sounds fine to me, and kind of parallels things like "bring your best"; but I'd agree that it mostly doesn't work when you try to add specific things back in. There's maybe a subtle difference between "bringing more to them" and "putting more into them" but I'd struggle to put it into words... it feels like it implies some relation to the mindset you approach the studies with?
    – mbrig
    Commented Feb 25, 2023 at 1:34
  • @Mari-LouA Of course - have you never heard the idiom "bring more to the table"? It can mean anything you need it to mean. For example, if you interviewed two candidates for a job and one had more qualities than the other, you might say it about them to mean that the additional things mean more as a whole. As I said in my answer, it can be very open-ended.
    – Astralbee
    Commented Feb 25, 2023 at 21:58

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