Comparison issues

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Comparison issues

by ashish2104 » Mon Jul 26, 2010 1:29 am
I am really having a big trouble figuring out how to handle comparison questions. I can spot the comparision, but somewhere down the line, i miss to compare correctly.

When we say, consider X,Y or X more than Y - do the two parts X and Y need to be logically parallel? I mean, if X is of the form noun+verb+prepositional phrase then Y also needs to be of the same form. I understand this, but most of the official questions tend to show that the Y part normally contains either noun+verb or simply a noun. I genrally miss on these comparisons.

I went through mgmt sc guide for this topic a numerous number of times, but still not able to master this topic. i miss almost 90% of comparison questions I see and my verbal score tends to come down because of this.

Please help correct this
Below is an example question.

Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by sailing west.

A)Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by sailing west.
B)Rather than accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by sailing west.
C)Instead of accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus sailed west to see whether he could reach India, having been sent by the king and queen of Spain.
D)Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus sailed west to see whether he could reach India, having been sent by the king and queen of Spain.
E)Instead of accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to sail west to see if he could reach India.

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by Stacey Koprince » Thu Aug 05, 2010 7:42 am
When we say, consider X,Y or X more than Y - do the two parts X and Y need to be logically parallel? I mean, if X is of the form noun+verb+prepositional phrase then Y also needs to be of the same form. I understand this, but most of the official questions tend to show that the Y part normally contains either noun+verb or simply a noun. I genrally miss on these comparisons.
Only the MAIN word for X and Y needs to be parallel - not the entire phrase or clause associated with X and Y. Your major problem is that you are trying to carry the parallelism too far.

I like white-haired cats with long tails rather than big dogs that bark a lot.

X = white-haired cats with long tails
Y = big dogs that bark a lot

Only the two main words (in this case, the nouns "cats" and "dogs") are required to be parallel. More parallelism is nice, but not required.

The specific example you chose above is a ManhattanGMAT question. That question was actually re-written earlier this week because the original question had problems (and that is the original question above, so don't study from that one). The new version uses an idiom structure that requires parallelism rather than a comparison structure that requires parallelism, but it still requires parallelism.

The new correct answer to the question is:
"(D) Christopher Columbus not only refused to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat but pressed relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia, finally receiving approval and financing from King Ferdinand of Spain in 1492 after several rejections."

The idiom structure is "not only X but Y" (you can also use "not only X but also Y").
X = refused to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat
Y = pressed relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia

Here, the two main words are the verbs "refused" and "pressed." Only those two words are required to be parallel.
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by ashish2104 » Fri Aug 06, 2010 1:18 am
Thanks a ton Stacey.

One quick one. I thought not only X, but also Y is correct.....not only X but Y is wrong idiom. Please correct me here.

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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Aug 09, 2010 11:44 am
BOTH are okay: "not only X but also Y" and "not only X but Y." The first one is more common, but the second one can also be correct.

You can't, though, use "not only X and also Y" or "not only X also Y" - you need the "but" (but the "also" can go either way!).
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by gmatusa2010 » Mon Aug 09, 2010 10:17 pm
Stacey,

What do you mean by "main word." How do you determine? For example, "The cricket lives in both grass and in trees." We know this is wrong because 1) it sounds awkward 2) because of the "in" before trees. In this case, X= grass, and Y= in trees. Both the "main words" are there and are compared to each other but it is wrong. Another example, "Anyone disposing of or servicing...." This is correct. But aren't you comparing "disposing of" with "servicing" My question really is how far do you "carry the parallelism."


[The word after servicing is refrigerator. Because you can't say disposing without "of", it is ok? In fact, I don't think you can use dispose without of. I would post in its entirety but I don't know source.]

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by Stacey Koprince » Fri Aug 13, 2010 7:31 pm
And you can take it a bit further in your first example. The X and the Y should each be able to create an independent, grammatically correct sentence. Remove the idiom and one of the two parallel parts:

The cricket lives in grass.
The cricket lives in in trees. (That's not a typo - that's what the sentence says. That's why it's wrong!)

For the next one, "disposing" and "servicing" are the X and the Y. The vast majority of the time, the X and the Y are each one word. That's how far you carry the parallelism. And split it up again, the way I did above: anyone disposing of the refrigerator... anyone servicing the refrigerator. Both are fine, and "disposing" and "servicing" are parallel. Good.

Many times, the X and Y are are nouns or verbs - because if you have, say, an adjective and a noun, the noun is always the main word. The adjective just describes the noun, right? The adjective is just a modifier. Nouns and verbs are most often the "main" words.
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by BellTheGMAT » Sat Nov 27, 2010 9:39 am
ashish2104 wrote: Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by sailing west.

A)Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by sailing west.
B)Rather than accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by sailing west.
C)Instead of accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus sailed west to see whether he could reach India, having been sent by the king and queen of Spain.
D)Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus sailed west to see whether he could reach India, having been sent by the king and queen of Spain.
E)Instead of accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to sail west to see if he could reach India.
Whats the OA? I am confused between C and D.... In exam, I would have gone with C...

@Stacey - Can you kindly elaborate between C and D... when to use "ing" form aas Pharse and when to use as Clause...

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by mundasingh123 » Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:46 pm
i think D has a tense issue if you invert it.
Columbus sailed west rather than accept.
It sounds awkward but i would like to know the proper grammatical reason for jecting it.
I am not in the favour of : Columbus sailed west rather than accepting
i go with C
but i posted this reply so that ppl better at sc could forward and help

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by tomada » Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:39 am
I went with D. Does anyone know the OA ?
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by ov25 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 12:13 pm
guys tom, munda and bell..please read the entire experts comments....

The qn in the thread has problems so find the revised qn within first of her comments.

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by tomada » Wed Dec 01, 2010 12:19 pm
Ah, now I see that it's embedded in the explanation. I guess I was looking for "OA = _ ".

Speaking of which, you could've saved yourself a lot of keystrokes (all but one, in fact) by typing the letter associated with the correct answer.
ov25 wrote:guys tom, munda and bell..please read the entire experts comments....

The qn in the thread has problems so find the revised qn within first of her comments.
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by eladoren » Thu Jan 06, 2011 5:30 am
Although the question is flawed, I think it is worthwhile to understand why
None of the answers are/is (anyone knows ? the answer is both...hahah) correct. At least not looked like.
C is the least worst. D has a problem in accept, should be to accept but then has a parallelism issue.
In A,B,E the sentence does not make sense (rather than accept, colombus was sent... does not make any sense)
In C though, there is no grammatical error but accepting is not parallel with sailed, and RATHER is preferred to INSTEAD in GMAT.

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by zander21 » Wed Sep 14, 2011 10:55 am
tomada wrote:I went with D. Does anyone know the OA ?
For the same reason a baseball player doesn't make a goak of hitting .400 percentage? It's possible but not going to happen.

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by mankey » Fri Sep 30, 2011 8:07 am
Please tell us what is the OA for this one. Also help, what are the things to focus on in this?

Thanks
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by asgupta2k » Mon Oct 17, 2011 6:41 pm
(B) looks like correct answer as "rather than" is preferred over instead of by GMAT.