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Pedros: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 40; Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:02 pm; Thanked: 3 times; GMAT Score:410

widespread belief

by Pedros » Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:19 am

There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe that young people have a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents and that the source of the change lies in the collapse of the "work ethic."

(A) a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents
(B) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents
(C) a smaller commitment to work and a career than that of their parents and grandparents
(D) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents had
(E) a lessening of the commitment to work and a career that their parents and grandparents had

Regardless to smaller & less of , is the parallelism structure correct in C ?

OA is D

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:19 am

dumb.doofus: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 435; Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 2:02 pm; Location: San Jose, CA; Thanked: 43 times; Followed by:1 members; GMAT Score:720

by dumb.doofus » Fri Jul 10, 2009 8:22 am

There are two things you are comparing.. commitment to work and career.. and that's the reason, C is incorrect.. because it use the pronoun "that" to refer to these two things.. I would have preferred "those"

THere are only two choices out of which we need to choose.. D and E.. coz both of them correctly use "had" and imply the meaning that these things were present in parents in the past..

E is incorrect as "a lessening of the commitment" is just plain odd and awkward..

Only D is left out.

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raunekk: Legendary Member; Posts: 1159; Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:35 pm; Thanked: 56 times

by raunekk » Fri Jul 10, 2009 10:17 am

there is no written rule stating that "that" cant refer to plural words...

Check this out ..

https://www.beatthegmat.com/that-vs-those-t21519.html

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goelmohit2002: Legendary Member; Posts: 1799; Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2008 3:03 am; Thanked: 36 times; Followed by:2 members

by goelmohit2002 » Sun Aug 30, 2009 10:09 am

i guess that is correct in C....since we are comparing commitment....(singular) towards X and Y(this X and Y are just fluffs).....

I guess there must be someother reason to kick out C...

I guess the problem is because of "of" in C....which has no parallel element in preceding part....

Can someone please tell...what may be the reason for C to be wrong ?

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crackgmat007: Legendary Member; Posts: 882; Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2009 2:57 pm; Thanked: 15 times; Followed by:1 members; GMAT Score:690

by crackgmat007 » Sun Aug 30, 2009 12:03 pm

goelmohit2002 wrote:i guess that is correct in C....since we are comparing commitment....(singular) towards X and Y(this X and Y are just fluffs).....

I guess there must be someother reason to kick out C...

I guess the problem is because of "of" in C....which has no parallel element in preceding part....

Can someone please tell...what may be the reason for C to be wrong ?

IMO 'that' is not correct in C.

'that' is referring to 'a smaller commitment to work' AND 'a career'. Hence 'those' would be correct.

If C were to read without 'a' before career, it may be correct. But again as stated in the below post, we cannot use smaller. <edited>

(C) a smaller commitment to work and career than that of their parents and grandparents

Last edited by crackgmat007 on Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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knightwalker: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 6; Joined: Sat May 31, 2008 4:19 am

by knightwalker » Tue Sep 01, 2009 6:40 am

I would think that 'smaller' when referring to commitment is wrong... commitment should always be 'less'...

Please correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is that feelings (like commitment, love, passion, etc.) are thought of in terms of more(greater) or less, as unquantified substances.

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by lunarpower » Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:38 pm

the biggest problem with (c) is "that of", which is not actually parallel to anything at all.

if you write "that of their parents and grandparents", then this MUST be parallel to one of the following two types of constructions:
* another OF construction (the commitment of young people)
* a POSSESSIVE construction (young people's commitment)

since neither of these constructions appears in the first part of the sentence, you can't use "that of" in the second part.

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by lunarpower » Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:46 pm

@ crackgmat007

crackgmat007 wrote: 'that' is referring to 'a smaller commitment to work' AND 'a career'. Hence 'those' would be correct.

If C were to read without 'a' before career, it may be correct. But again as stated in the below post, we cannot use smaller. <edited>

(C) a smaller commitment to work and career than that of their parents and grandparents

incorrect on two counts.

--

(1)
first, you're not parsing the phrase "commitment to work and a career" correctly.
you're thinking of it as
(commitment to work) and (a career)
when in fact it should be parsed as
commitment to (work and a career)

there's no strict grammar rule at work here; you just have to parse the phrase in the way that makes the most sense in context.
the former way (yours) doesn't make sense, because "commitment to work" and "a career" aren't parallel.
the latter makes more sense, because "work" and "a career" are parallel.

--

(2)
you CANNOT have "career" without "a" here.

here's the difference:
the only SINGULAR nouns that you can use without articles are
* most proper nouns, such as Dave or Chicago
* mass nouns (i.e., nouns that represent continuous uncountable quantities), such as furniture or stress

also, note that you CAN'T use articles in front of these nouns.

to further complicate the issue, note that some nouns can go both ways - i.e., they can count as mass nouns (no article) but also as countable nouns (requiring an article).

for instance:
i am enthusiastic about food. --> here "food" is a mass noun; no article.
whole wheat is a food to which i am allergic. --> here "food" is countable and so takes an article.

HERE:
work is a mass noun, so you can just say "commitment to work".
career is NOT a mass noun. therefore, it requires an article. if you wrote "commitment to career", that would be ungrammatical.

hope that helps.

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vineetbatra: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 355; Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:42 pm; Thanked: 2 times; Followed by:1 members

by vineetbatra » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:01 pm

Ron,

Can you also shed some light on less and smaller. I think smaller is used with countables and less with uncountable and since commitment cannot be countable smaller is incorrect.

please advice.

Vineet

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by lunarpower » Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:05 am

vineetbatra wrote:Ron,

Can you also shed some light on less and smaller. I think smaller is used with countables and less with uncountable and since commitment cannot be countable smaller is incorrect.

please advice.

Vineet

you are correct that "less" is used for uncountable / continuous quantities.
"smaller", though, can be used for either countable quantities (smaller cars) or uncountable quantities (smaller furniture).

if the word "smaller" is used in formal english, it's usually used in one of the following 2 contexts:
* literal physical size (this hotel's rooms are smaller than that hotel's rooms)
* number or quantity (country X has a smaller population than country Y)

Last edited by lunarpower on Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

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vineetbatra: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 355; Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:42 pm; Thanked: 2 times; Followed by:1 members

by vineetbatra » Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:05 am

So in the above case we cannot use Smaller for commitment because commitment is neither a physical size, not number or quantity.

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nicolas: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 5; Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 11:02 am; Thanked: 1 times

by nicolas » Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:34 am

lunarpower wrote: you are correct that "less" is used for countable quantities.
"smaller", though, can be used for either countable quantities (smaller cars) or uncountable quantities (smaller furniture).

Hi,
I just encountered this discussion. You wrote that "less" is used for countable quantities. In the GMAT Review book it is stated that "fewer refers to a specific number, whereas less than refers to a continuous quantity." I just wanted to add that, as I would classify commitment rather as a continuous quantity, making the use of "less" somewhat more clear..

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

by lunarpower » Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:17 am

nicolas wrote:
lunarpower wrote: you are correct that "less" is used for countable quantities.
"smaller", though, can be used for either countable quantities (smaller cars) or uncountable quantities (smaller furniture).
Hi,
I just encountered this discussion. You wrote that "less" is used for countable quantities. In the GMAT Review book it is stated that "fewer refers to a specific number, whereas less than refers to a continuous quantity." I just wanted to add that, as I would classify commitment rather as a continuous quantity, making the use of "less" somewhat more clear..

wow, nice catch. i've gone back and edited that post. thanks.

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gracezz: Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts; Posts: 10; Joined: Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:51 am

by gracezz » Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:54 am

Hi everyone, i don't understand why D is better than B, i think E should be than their parents and grandparents did...rather than use the verb had...

Would anybody pls help me out with this one?

thank you..

Last edited by gracezz on Mon Apr 12, 2010 3:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

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akhpad: Legendary Member; Posts: 809; Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 10:10 pm; Thanked: 50 times; Followed by:4 members

by akhpad » Mon Apr 12, 2010 2:12 am

Here, you can say, D is better among five.

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