Sentence Correction

RonPurewal
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Post Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 4:50 am
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ManhattanGMAT Staff



Posts: 5814
Anon wrote:
Hi Ron,

Could you please provide an example to clarify ... with adjectival and adverbial phrases...

X has more money now than when the stock market crashed
X has more money now than in 1988
X has more money than he had in 1988


are these all correct.... ???

thanks in advance -


i don't think the gmat would like any of these constructions all that much.

first two: the gmat would probably ding these for not changing the tensed verb. when you have a parallel structure, the common parts (here, "has ... money") are assumed to apply equally to both parts of the structure; applying that principle here leads to the conclusion that the present tense (has) is being applied to both halves of the parallel construction, including the second half (which is obviously a past event).

in other words: the second sentence expands as "x has more money now than he has in 1988". that's wrong.
the same type of thing applies to the first sentence - again, the second half needs a verb that's fixed in the past tense.

the third part seems fine, although there's something slightly undesirable about it (i can't put my finger on it exactly).