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Official GMAT paper exam question

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by jaydeer44 » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:30 am
Official GMAT Paper Exam question. Please Help!

The answer is E. Shouldn't the idiom used in E be "shortens to....FROM..." instead of "shortens to....RATHER THAN" ?

Intended primarily to stimulate family summer travel, the new airfare, which allows both an adult and a child to fly for the price of one ticket, and also shortens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a minimum of seven days rather than fourteen.
(A) and also shortens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a minimum of seven days rather than
(B) and also lessens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a seven-day minimum from
(C) also shortens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a minimum of seven days rather than that of
(D) also lessens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a seven-day minimum from
(E) also shortens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a minimum of seven days rather than
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by wonder » Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:13 am
i read it in Spideys notes (or manhattan bible either of the two!) that 'when comparing verbs, rather than is preferred over instead of'...so its perfectly fine here...
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by eccentric » Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:58 pm
All is fine but isn't a conjuction and needed in the sentence;
My initial impression was A is all right; How does E qualify to an OA

Regards
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by stubbornp » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:41 pm
imo E....just understand properly....We cant use AND here..........

"which allows both an adult and a child to fly for the price of one ticket " only modifies "The New Airfare".....So need of AND...



@
rather than is preffered over instead of....
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by logitech » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:12 pm
Can someone please clarify why we don't need AND in option E ?

Cheers,
LGTCH
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"DON'T LET ANYONE STEAL YOUR DREAM!"
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by raunekk » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:25 pm
Can someone please clarify why we don't need AND in option E ?

Cheers,
IMO,

AND cant be used for two reasons:

1)IF "and" is used as conjunction then we dont need a comma
2)If And is used as conjunction there is a problem of dangling modifier.

anyone??
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by logitech » Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:30 pm
Let me answer my own question :)

Intended primarily to stimulate family summer travel, the new airfare, which allows both an adult and a child to fly for the price of one ticket, and also shortens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a minimum of seven days rather than fourteen.

, ------------NON ESSENTIAL------------,

when we get rid of this part in the sentence we are left with:

Intended primarily to stimulate family summer travel, the new airfare ALSO shorthens...

Thanks Logitech

:lol:
LGTCH
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by mais » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:44 am
It really doesnt help when you post the answer before the question.
Next time post answer below so that we could all benefit for the question.
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by avonmore » Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:41 am
requirement cant be shorten, only duration
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by iamcste » Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:45 am
logitech wrote:Let me answer my own question :)

Intended primarily to stimulate family summer travel, the new airfare, which allows both an adult and a child to fly for the price of one ticket, and also shortens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a minimum of seven days rather than fourteen.

, ------------NON ESSENTIAL------------,

when we get rid of this part in the sentence we are left with:

Intended primarily to stimulate family summer travel, the new airfare ALSO shorthens...

Thanks Logitech

:lol:
Kewl
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why the answer is E....

by hitmewithgmat » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:54 pm
"Intended primarily to stimulate family summer travel, the new airfare, which allows both an adult and a child to fly for the price of one ticket, and also shortens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a minimum of seven days rather than fourteen."

The first thing we need to figure out when you encounter SC question is to locate SUBJECT and VERB. However, we just ignore this simple rule. oh lordy...

So, let's find those babies.

What is the subject in this sentence?
Yup. "the new airfare". and uh oh. right after "the new airfare", there is a modifier that describes the subject. Ok then.

then what is the verb?
"shortens" is the verb of this sentence. why "s" after shorten? because the subject is a singular. I hope everyone follows this rule. I hope you do!!

and take a look at the answer choices.
Eliminate A, and B. It starts with "and" and we don't need this.

and compare the usage of "shortens" and "lessen"
"lessen" means to become smaller in size, importance, or value, or make something do this.

So eliminate D.

Then we have C and E left.

Then why C is incorrect....
in (C), " a miminum of seven days rather than that of fourteen days" will be the correct answer but that does not in the multiple choices.

I hope this helps.
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Re: why the answer is E....

by dreamzz2010 » Thu Feb 05, 2009 12:11 pm
why we dont need AND as given in option A and B
hitmewithgmat wrote:"Intended primarily to stimulate family summer travel, the new airfare, which allows both an adult and a child to fly for the price of one ticket, and also shortens the advance-purchase requirement for family travel to a minimum of seven days rather than fourteen."

The first thing we need to figure out when you encounter SC question is to locate SUBJECT and VERB. However, we just ignore this simple rule. oh lordy...

So, let's find those babies.

What is the subject in this sentence?
Yup. "the new airfare". and uh oh. right after "the new airfare", there is a modifier that describes the subject. Ok then.

then what is the verb?
"shortens" is the verb of this sentence. why "s" after shorten? because the subject is a singular. I hope everyone follows this rule. I hope you do!!

and take a look at the answer choices.
Eliminate A, and B. It starts with "and" and we don't need this.

and compare the usage of "shortens" and "lessen"
"lessen" means to become smaller in size, importance, or value, or make something do this.

So eliminate D.

Then we have C and E left.

Then why C is incorrect....
in (C), " a miminum of seven days rather than that of fourteen days" will be the correct answer but that does not in the multiple choices.

I hope this helps.
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by maihuna » Tue Dec 29, 2009 8:07 am
* "and" at the beginning is inappropriate. here's why:
the new airfare, which allows both an adult and a child to fly for the price of one ticket, and also shortens
the yellow part is a modifier, which can be eliminated in the determination of subject-verb agreement. clearly, we need to write "the new airfare shortens...", and not "the new airfare and also shortens...".

* "lessen" is a weird word to use in this sort of context. usually, "lessen" is used with abstract qualities such as tension, disagreement, etc and not for discrete quantitative things (e.g. numbers of days ).

* "seven-day minimum" is awkward by gmat standards;
Charged up again to beat the beast :)
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