English proficiency of students

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suchoudh: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 78; Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:44 pm; Thanked: 1 times

by suchoudh » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:24 pm

In 1998, there were 3.2 million public school students who were not proficient in English in the USA, almost twice as many as 1990.

(A) almost twice as many as
(B) almost twice as many as in
(C) almost twice as many as there were in
(D) nearly twice as many as in
(E) about twice as many as there were in

Please explain your answer. OA to follow in a later post.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:24 pm

grockit_andrea: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 357; Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:31 pmFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 128 times

by grockit_andrea » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:29 pm

I believe that the answer here would be D, because "as there were in" is necessary to establish that the comparison is between the numbers of students who weren't proficient in 1998 and 1990. If the sentence just said "as in 1990," it could be read as comparing "in English" to "in 1990," which doesn't make sense.

Andrea A.
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suchoudh: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 78; Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:44 pm; Thanked: 1 times

by suchoudh » Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:38 pm

I am sorry you mean C or E? "as there were in" is not in the answer choice D.

grockit_andrea wrote:I believe that the answer here would be D, because "as there were in" is necessary to establish that the comparison is between the numbers of students who weren't proficient in 1998 and 1990. If the sentence just said "as in 1990," it could be read as comparing "in English" to "in 1990," which doesn't make sense.

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grockit_andrea: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 357; Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:31 pmFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 128 times

by grockit_andrea » Sun Mar 28, 2010 4:44 pm

Oops, yes, I meant C. Sorry about that!

Andrea A.
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suchoudh: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 78; Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:44 pm; Thanked: 1 times

by suchoudh » Sun Mar 28, 2010 4:54 pm

I have two questions here:

1. Can we eliminate "there were" using ellipsis; or it changes the meaning and breaks the parallelism?

2. How to choose between C and E i.e. almost vs about.

Yes, the answer is indeed C.

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gmat_perfect: Legendary Member; Posts: 1083; Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:38 pmFollowed by: 14 members; Thanked: 127 times

by gmat_perfect » Mon Mar 29, 2010 1:10 am

As many as:

"As many as +clause" should be correct.
A, B, and D are out.

Now, we are between C and E:

Almost =very nearly but not exactly or entirely <we're almost there>.
About = almost =very close to.

So, no significant difference between about and almost is found.

Why should we choose C over E? Would any expert explain?

Thanks.

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suchoudh: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 78; Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:44 pm; Thanked: 1 times

by suchoudh » Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:54 pm

gmat_perfect wrote: Why should we choose C over E? Would any expert explain?

"About" is almost always used as a preposition, not an adjective, so the adjective "almost" is the preferable word here.

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