Sentence Correction

the biggest problem with (c) is "that of", which is not actually parallel to anything at all.

if you write "that of their parents and grandparents", then this MUST be parallel to one of the following two types of constructions:
* another OF construction (the commitment of young people)
* a POSSESSIVE construction (young people's commitment)

since neither of these constructions appears in the first part of the sentence, you can't use "that of" in the second part.

@ crackgmat007

crackgmat007 wrote: 'that' is referring to 'a smaller commitment to work' AND 'a career'. Hence 'those' would be correct.

If C were to read without 'a' before career, it may be correct. But again as stated in the below post, we cannot use smaller. <edited>

(C) a smaller commitment to work and career than that of their parents and grandparents

incorrect on two counts.

--

(1)
first, you're not parsing the phrase "commitment to work and a career" correctly.
you're thinking of it as
(commitment to work) and (a career)
when in fact it should be parsed as
commitment to (work and a career)

there's no strict grammar rule at work here; you just have to parse the phrase in the way that makes the most sense in context.
the former way (yours) doesn't make sense, because "commitment to work" and "a career" aren't parallel.
the latter makes more sense, because "work" and "a career" are parallel.

--

(2)
you CANNOT have "career" without "a" here.

here's the difference:
the only SINGULAR nouns that you can use without articles are
* most proper nouns, such as Dave or Chicago
* mass nouns (i.e., nouns that represent continuous uncountable quantities), such as furniture or stress

also, note that you CAN'T use articles in front of these nouns.

to further complicate the issue, note that some nouns can go both ways - i.e., they can count as mass nouns (no article) but also as countable nouns (requiring an article).

for instance:
i am enthusiastic about food. --> here "food" is a mass noun; no article.
whole wheat is a food to which i am allergic. --> here "food" is countable and so takes an article.

HERE:
work is a mass noun, so you can just say "commitment to work".
career is NOT a mass noun. therefore, it requires an article. if you wrote "commitment to career", that would be ungrammatical.

hope that helps.

vineetbatra wrote:Ron,

Can you also shed some light on less and smaller. I think smaller is used with countables and less with uncountable and since commitment cannot be countable smaller is incorrect.

please advice.

Vineet

you are correct that "less" is used for uncountable / continuous quantities.
"smaller", though, can be used for either countable quantities (smaller cars) or uncountable quantities (smaller furniture).

if the word "smaller" is used in formal english, it's usually used in one of the following 2 contexts:
* literal physical size (this hotel's rooms are smaller than that hotel's rooms)
* number or quantity (country X has a smaller population than country Y)

nicolas wrote:

lunarpower wrote: you are correct that "less" is used for countable quantities.
"smaller", though, can be used for either countable quantities (smaller cars) or uncountable quantities (smaller furniture).

Hi,
I just encountered this discussion. You wrote that "less" is used for countable quantities. In the GMAT Review book it is stated that "fewer refers to a specific number, whereas less than refers to a continuous quantity." I just wanted to add that, as I would classify commitment rather as a continuous quantity, making the use of "less" somewhat more clear..

wow, nice catch. i've gone back and edited that post. thanks.