Comparsion questions

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abcgmat: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 222; Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 1:06 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 19 times

by abcgmat » Fri Oct 14, 2011 9:56 am

a. There are more members of the city council that support the proposal than there are that oppose it.
b. The businesses in central Lyriana are less accessible to pedestrian traffic, on average, than are businesses in neighboring business districts.
c. There are more potential customers in Lyriana that own automobiles than there are potential customers who use public transportation.
d. Small businesses in the central Lyriana business district are more likely to receive pedestrian traffic than are larger businesses in the central Lyriana business district.
e. Local customers are more likely to spend money in the central Lyriana business district than are tourists visiting central Lyriana by automobile.

I got this sentences from beat the GMAT forum
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2009/11/ ... ons-part-1
Could you let me know why the above sentences are wrong
Is the below version correct

a. There are more members of the city council that support the proposal than those that oppose it.

b. The businesses in central Lyriana are less accessible to pedestrian traffic, on average, than businesses in neighboring business districts. (Removed : are: Is are here incorrect or is it just wordy)

c. There are more potential customers in Lyriana that own automobiles than potential customers who use public transportation. (Removed :there are )

d. Small businesses in the central Lyriana business district are more likely to receive pedestrian traffic than larger businesses in the central Lyriana business district.
(Removed: are )

e. Local customers are more likely to spend money in the central Lyriana business district than tourists visiting central Lyriana by automobile.
(Removed are)

Last edited by abcgmat on Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Fri Oct 14, 2011 9:56 am

abcgmat: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 222; Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 1:06 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 19 times

by abcgmat » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:28 pm

Can someone help me with this

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GmatKiss: Legendary Member; Posts: 2789; Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2011 12:19 amFollowed by: 43 members; Location: Chennai, India; Thanked: 206 times; GMAT Score:640

by GmatKiss » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:56 pm

Sorry the post is not structured!

What is your question??

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abcgmat: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 222; Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 1:06 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 19 times

by abcgmat » Sun Oct 16, 2011 1:40 pm

I got this sentences from Beat the gmat forum (Knewton questions) where the sentences are incorrect because they have incorrect comparisons 'applies to Oranges'.

I have placed the questions from the site first and my version of comparisons later. Would like to know if they are correct and , especially the usage of 'are' in some sentence. Would like to know whether its incorrect to use 'are' or does it make the sentence wordy.

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abcgmat: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 222; Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 1:06 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 19 times

by abcgmat » Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:56 am

Can some experts advice

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shankar.ashwin: Legendary Member; Posts: 966; Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 8:06 amFollowed by: 21 members; Thanked: 230 times

by shankar.ashwin » Tue Oct 18, 2011 11:53 am

All of these use faulty comparisons. Have included spoilers in each of the sentence which is wrongly compared.

abcgmat wrote:a. There are more members of the city council that support the proposal than there are that oppose it.
b. The businesses in central Lyriana are less accessible to pedestrian traffic, on average, than are businesses in neighboring business districts.
c. There are more potential customers in Lyriana that own automobiles than there are potential customers who use public transportation.
d. Small businesses in the central Lyriana business district are more likely to receive pedestrian traffic than are larger businesses in the central Lyriana business district.
e. Local customers are more likely to spend money in the central Lyriana business district than are tourists visiting central Lyriana by automobile.

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lunarpower: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3380; Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:20 amFollowed by: 1535 members; Thanked: 2256 times; GMAT Score:800

by lunarpower » Sun Oct 30, 2011 10:26 pm

abcgmat wrote:a. There are more members of the city council that support the proposal than there are that oppose it.
b. The businesses in central Lyriana are less accessible to pedestrian traffic, on average, than are businesses in neighboring business districts.
c. There are more potential customers in Lyriana that own automobiles than there are potential customers who use public transportation.
d. Small businesses in the central Lyriana business district are more likely to receive pedestrian traffic than are larger businesses in the central Lyriana business district.
e. Local customers are more likely to spend money in the central Lyriana business district than are tourists visiting central Lyriana by automobile.

wait, these were presented as wrong? there really aren't any problems with the comparisons in any of these sentences.
* (a) and (c) are incorrect because they try to use "that" to modify human beings (should be "who" for these modifiers).
* the use of "the" in (b) is a little bit weird -- ideally, "the" should either be on both parts or on neither of them -- but this is not the type of thing that you need to worry about, because the use of "the" is not tested on this exam.

in general, the helping verbs you're asking about here are inserted into comparisons to get rid of ambiguity.
for instance:
janice has known jonathan longer than dave.
--> this sentence has two potential meanings: (1) janice has known jonathan longer than dave has known jonathan, (2) janice has known jonathan longer than janice has known dave.
on the other hand:
janice has known jonathan longer than has dave
... this sentence now unambiguously means #1 of the above two meanings.

if there is no ambiguity in the original comparison, then you don't need one of these helping verbs (although you still can insert it, if you really want to).

Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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On peut poser des questions Ã Ron en franÃ§ais
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abcgmat: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 222; Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2011 1:06 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 19 times

by abcgmat » Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:18 pm

Hi Ron,

Thanks for explaining a,b, and c. Can you explain D and E. Are these sentences correct or do they have any error.

I have been through the Comparison videos, which says if there is a helping verb on right, find the same in left.

d. Small businesses in the central Lyriana business district are more likely to receive pedestrian traffic than are larger businesses in the central Lyriana business district.

-- second part: are larger business........ Comparing with first part we have
'small business are more likely to ....'

So this looks good

e. Local customers are more likely to spend money in the central Lyriana business district than are tourists visiting central Lyriana by automobile.

--second part: are tourists visiting central Lyriana by automobile.
--First part:Local customers are more likely to spend money in the central
The comparison is between the local customers and tourists. so this also looks good

Had the sentence been as below, would the sentence be still correct

1. Local customers are more likely to spend money in the central Lyriana business district than do tourists visiting central Lyriana by automobile.
--As do can refer to spend (action verb)

Is my understanding correct

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lunarpower: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3380; Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:20 amFollowed by: 1535 members; Thanked: 2256 times; GMAT Score:800

by lunarpower » Fri Nov 25, 2011 1:52 pm

abcgmat wrote:Hi Ron,

Thanks for explaining a,b, and c. Can you explain D and E. Are these sentences correct or do they have any error.

(d) and (e) are fine.

Had the sentence been as below, would the sentence be still correct

1. Local customers are more likely to spend money in the central Lyriana business district than do tourists visiting central Lyriana by automobile.
--As do can refer to spend (action verb)

that version would be incorrect, because the resulting comparison doesn't make sense.
the original sentence compares the relative likelihood that the two groups of shoppers will spend money. if you write the sentence the way you've written it, it illogically compares the likelihood that one group will spend the money with the actual spending by the other group.

note also that this choice would be ok without the helping verb "are". if that helping verb is omitted, there is no ambiguity; therefore, the helping verb isn't actually needed in the first place.

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