Sentence Correction

In commercial garment construction, one advantage of serging over single-needle sewing is that the seam allowance is overcast as the seam is sewn instead of a separate process requiring deeper seam allowances.
A. instead of
B. rather than in
C. in contrast with
D. As opposed to
E. As against being done in


Please chose the correct answer and explain. I won't spoil the fun by telling the OA immediately. I'll give it after people try it.

I think it is D, as two processes , "the seam allowance is overcast as the seam is sewn" and "a separate process requiring deeper seam allowances" are compared.

I believe is B, GMAT prefers "rather" , I am sorry I don't have a better explanation...

C or D.. sorry.. no explanation

The OA is B.

The explanation:
Think about what the sentence is telling you. The Seam "is overcast ... in a separate process." The Seam is not "overcast ... instead of a separate process."
:roll:

I still don't get it. Can someone explain?

rajesh_ctm wrote:The OA is B.

The explanation:
Think about what the sentence is telling you. The Seam "is overcast ... in a separate process." The Seam is not "overcast ... instead of a separate process."
:roll:

I still don't get it. Can someone explain?

I don't get it. If someone does, let me know

can anyone pls explain this...it is quite confusing....

I think it is E.
seam allowance is overcast as the seam is sewn as against being done in a separate process requiring deeper seam allowances.

In all the other options 'Sewing of seem' is compared to 'a separate process' which is wrong.

The Question is testing instead of rather than.

Serging is one step Single needle sewing is a two step process.

We get the benefit in serging as soon as the sewing is done rather than in a separate process in the second process.

As opposed to is a tough choice to part ways with. Its difficult to explain this Q better. When ever you see GMAT Q involving instead and rather than chances are very likely that its testing you on instead of and rather than

Whats the OA?

(b) is correct, and the key word is actually "in".

is that the seam allowance is overcast as the seam is sewn instead of a separate process requiring deeper seam allowances.

It's overcast AS the seam is sewn rather than IN a separate process.

We need "in" for parallelism and for the sentence to make sense.

The only other choice with "in" is (e), which is stylistically very weak.

Stuart,

How does as and in create parallelism?

Thanks

chidcguy wrote:Stuart,

How does as and in create parallelism?

Thanks

Without a second preposition, we're comparing a process to a thing.

Let's look at a much simpler sentence; one difficult thing about this question is that the most people probably don't understand the vocabulary.

Let's change:

one advantage of serging over single-needle sewing is that the seam allowance is overcast as the seam is sewn instead of a separate process requiring deeper seam allowances.

To:

One advantage of BBQing is that the meat is cooked on a grill rather than an oven.

Now, it's much easier for our ear to pick up the problem with this sentence. ".. on a grill" can't be compared to "an oven". You've probably already auto-corrected my sentence to:

One advantage of BBQing is that the meat is cooked on a grill rather than in an oven.

The question posted here has the exact same issue, it's just that the sentence is so complicated that it's harder to hear it.