The phrase "are to understand a" is not correct and does not form a coherent expression in written English.
It seems to be an incomplete thought and lacks clarity, making it unusable in its current form.
Example: "The instructions are to understand a complex concept before proceeding."
Alternatives: "are meant to grasp a" or "are intended to comprehend a".
This is not, we are to understand, a case of protesting too much: you don't go around invoking Cheney unless you really mean it.
Notice that this requires us to have not only a theory of the rational numbers (not difficult to develop) but also a theory of sets of rational numbers: if we are to understand a real number to be identified with a cut in the rational numbers, where a cut is a pair of sets of rational numbers, we do need to understand what a set of rational numbers is.
If young people -- and all the rest of us -- are to understand a fuller, people's history of the United States, they need to recognize that every aspect of early America was built on slavery.
The objectives of our study, therefore, are to understand: a) the mechanisms by which a complex intervention introduced into a complex context brings about its observed outcomes (i.e., how and why does the LDP 'work' when it is introduced into a district health system in Ghana); and b) whether or not the LDP increases systems thinking in district managers in this context.
One key is to understand a tradition as something that is essentially alive and dynamic.
"I think the main thing when you ride a horse is to understand a horse.
The goal here is to understand a whole from the study of its individual components.
The goal is to understand a health threat and identify lifesaving interventions.
In order to understand 34 Heritage is to understand a reverse-positioned brand.
Balanchine, we are to understand, was a tortured artist.
"What it allows us is to understand is a more sophisticated, nuanced picture of what class is like now.
