Sentence Correction

Jazzy B wrote:Whats the concept behind comparing ages,I am not able to decide which option to go for in cases like this.

In Canada,most people in service sector are of 20 years old or younger.

a)are of 20 years old or younger.
b)20 years old or less.
c)are younger than 20 years of age.
d)are younger than 20 years.
e)are less than 20 years of age.

Marty Murray wrote:

Jazzy B wrote:Whats the concept behind comparing ages,I am not able to decide which option to go for in cases like this.

In Canada,most people in service sector are of 20 years old or younger.

a)are of 20 years old or younger.
b)20 years old or less.
c)are younger than 20 years of age.
d)are younger than 20 years.
e)are less than 20 years of age.

People often seek to increase their GMAT SC hit rate by learning dozens and dozens of concepts or rules. While maybe some of those concepts and rules can be useful, in many cases you really don't need much more than logic to get right answers.

For example, the best way to get this question right is to look for meaning issues. (I fixed some of the answer choices, which included repeated words in the original post.)


(A) If you edit this version of the sentence a little to see the core of what it is saying, you get the following.

Most people in the service sector are of twenty years old.

Need I say more?

(B) This version is a little awkward, as twenty years old all works together to describe their ages, and then you have separately or less, which, I guess, means less than twenty, but isn't well connected to the expression twenty years old.

Really it would be better as twenty years old or younger.

(C) This seems to compare how young they are to twenty years of age.

They are younger than twenty years of age.

Check out this analogous example.

The trees are taller than twenty feet of height.

However, twenty years of age is an idiomatic expression that basically means the same thing that twenty years old does.

So since this version basically says that they are younger than twenty years old, I guess it is the best one.

Of course the meaning of this version leaves out something stated in the original, that they could be exactly twenty years old, but that "changed meaning" rule is largely mythical. So I am not going to worry about that possible issue.

(D) This seems to convey that they are younger than twenty years are young.

(E) This compares the people to the years of age.

They are less than something. What are they less than? Twenty years of age.

While this question is not that tight and I find debatable which answer is the best, there are things to be learned from it, and meaning combined with a little knowledge of idioms dictates that the best answer is C.

AbdurRakib wrote:

Marty Murray wrote:(A) If you edit this version of the sentence a little to see the core of what it is saying, you get the following.

Most people in the service sector are of twenty years old.

Need I say more?

Thanks for your explanation

Can you elaborate more about what's wrong with Answer Choice A.