There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe that young people have a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents and that the source of the change lies in the collapse of the "work ethic".
A) a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents
B) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents
C) a smaller commitment to work and a career than that of their parents and grandparents
D) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents had
E) a lessening of the commitment to work and a career that their parent and grandparents had
OA is __D__.
My questions are:
i. Why is A ambiguous?, Why is "had" required in the OA?
ii. Is there a technique to determine whether a sentence is ambiguous?
iii. Is there a difference between "smaller" and "less of..."? I read in other forum that smaller is better for physical objects while "less of" is better for abstract concepts.
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metallicafan
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itskals
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I guess it is a Comparison type question. .... ; in this case simply isolate the comparative items :
the amount of commitment : younger generation have... vs parents and grandparents had...
Hence Ans Choices - A, B, C are wrong.
Ans choice E - is NOT using Parallel structure and usage of work 'lessening' is inappropriate
Also : between less and smaller , I think use 'less' than for Nouns and 'smaller/lower' for adjectives
Hope it makes sense
the amount of commitment : younger generation have... vs parents and grandparents had...
Hence Ans Choices - A, B, C are wrong.
Ans choice E - is NOT using Parallel structure and usage of work 'lessening' is inappropriate
Also : between less and smaller , I think use 'less' than for Nouns and 'smaller/lower' for adjectives
Hope it makes sense
Kalyan C
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GMAT Coach & MBA Admissions Consultant| Bangalore | India
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Hi metallicafan,
This SC essentially comes down to two rules:
1) The style rule "smaller" vs. "less": "smaller" would be used for a physical comparison while "less" is for anything that you can't physically point to and count. Since commitment is NOT a countable thing, the correct answer will use the word "less"
2) The 2-part parallelism/comparison rule: The first part of the sentence uses "young people have", so the second part of the sentence must have "noun...verb". That makes the correct answer D.
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
This SC essentially comes down to two rules:
1) The style rule "smaller" vs. "less": "smaller" would be used for a physical comparison while "less" is for anything that you can't physically point to and count. Since commitment is NOT a countable thing, the correct answer will use the word "less"
2) The 2-part parallelism/comparison rule: The first part of the sentence uses "young people have", so the second part of the sentence must have "noun...verb". That makes the correct answer D.
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
