Answer Confusion:National Association

zaarathelab wrote:According to a 1996 survey by the National Association of College and University Business
Officers, more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education charge
tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year than those that charge over $16,000.

A. than those that charge
B. than are charging
C. than to charge
D. as charge
E. as those charging

I have seen numerous posts for this question. But there is still confusion between D & E

Can someone pls explain it conceptually?

D is correct because

1. in E those is ambiguous
2. charge in D is right in order to keep the sentence in sync/parallel with former part of the sentence i.e as many independent institutions of higher education charge blah blaaaah blaaaahhhh as charge
3. usage of chargingin E is incorrect as the sentence doesn't require continous tense and causes non parallelism

I will go with E here.

For me, those refers to the institutions.

Crick

aspirant2011 wrote:

zaarathelab wrote:According to a 1996 survey by the National Association of College and University Business
Officers, more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education charge
tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year than those that charge over $16,000.

A. than those that charge
B. than are charging
C. than to charge
D. as charge
E. as those charging

I have seen numerous posts for this question. But there is still confusion between D & E

Can someone pls explain it conceptually?

D is correct because

1. in E those is ambiguous
2. charge in D is right in order to keep the sentence in sync/parallel with former part of the sentence i.e as many independent institutions of higher education charge blah blaaaah blaaaahhhh as charge
3. usage of chargingin E is incorrect as the sentence doesn't require continous tense and causes non parallelism

IMO, E is correct. 'those' is not ambigous as the charge is about independent institutions. we are comparing the fee of the institutes. hence, here, those refer to the institutes.
the 'charging' seems to break the parallelism but the wordiness of the sentence retains.

The reason why i feel D is incorrect coz the only word charge seems ambigous. i.e. is the charge mentioned ($16,000) a regulatory charge mentioned by some authority or if its a comparison of other institutes.

We again have differing views

GMAT Instructors GMATGURUNY, Lunarpower, pls help!