Sentence Correction

He is as depressed as they, but he soldiered onward anyway

I have read that for ellipsis to be correct, the missing word should exactly appear in the part of the sentence before the missing word.

In the above sentence, 'are' is missing but 'are' does not appear anywhere in the sentence. So I feel that this Ellipsis is flawed. The source of this is a flash card and it states that this statement is correct

Regards,
Vishal

Please help

I'm not so sure about this rule.

There are two types of rules that you may encounter on the GMAT forums: generally applicable to English language and used on the GMAT only. You can rely on the first type and should be wary of the second (though they might work too if they're backed up by many official problems).

Some SC could be hard, and it's very tempting to set up some new "rules" to fit the problem at hand. I'm not telling that the rule you cited doesn't exist; I just don't have any proof that it works (such as official problems where you must eliminate wrong choices based on this rule solely).

As to your sentence, it seems perfectly ok to me, and ellipsis in the structure as [adjective] as ... (and in same ... as ... too, by the way). In other words, with two "as" or "same"+"as" you can use ellipsis all you want if there's no ambiguity.

However, if it's only one "as", and you want comparison in the sentence, then you have two options: either clause (with subject and verb together) or prepositional phrase:
As in the previous interview, he kept asking the same questions. ("same" here is not a part of the structure I mentioned above; here it's on its own)
John has been trying to win the tournament, as did the other participants.

When you see "as" + a noun, "as" is used to identify:
As a doctor, George was thrilled with this opportunity.

So, if you used ellipsis (and omitted the verb) in comparisons with only one "as", you would get "as"+noun, and it certainly would be a mistake (changes the meaning to identification instead of comparison). There're a lot of problems on this one, but I can't name one off the top of my head (I'm sorry).

ilyana wrote:I'm not so sure about this rule.

There are two types of rules that you may encounter on the GMAT forums: generally applicable to English language and used on the GMAT only. You can rely on the first type and should be wary of the second (though they might work too if they're backed up by many official problems).

Some SC could be hard, and it's very tempting to set up some new "rules" to fit the problem at hand. I'm not telling that the rule you cited doesn't exist; I just don't have any proof that it works (such as official problems where you must eliminate wrong choices based on this rule solely).

As to your sentence, it seems perfectly ok to me, and ellipsis in the structure as [adjective] as ... (and in same ... as ... too, by the way). In other words, with two "as" or "same"+"as" you can use ellipsis all you want if there's no ambiguity.

However, if it's only one "as", and you want comparison in the sentence, then you have two options: either clause (with subject and verb together) or prepositional phrase:
As in the previous interview, he kept asking the same questions. ("same" here is not a part of the structure I mentioned above; here it's on its own)
John has been trying to win the tournament, as did the other participants.

When you see "as" + a noun, "as" is used to identify:
As a doctor, George was thrilled with this opportunity.

So, if you used ellipsis (and omitted the verb) in comparisons with only one "as", you would get "as"+noun, and it certainly would be a mistake (changes the meaning to identification instead of comparison). There're a lot of problems on this one, but I can't name one off the top of my head (I'm sorry).

Hi Ilyana,

I read about this rule in Mitch's reply to the following question

https://www.beatthegmat.com/stadium-fill ... 99400.html

Please help me understand this. My GMAT is scheduled in 2 days and I definitely have to sort this thing

At your mercy
Vishal

I'll see what I can do.

This rule is concerning situations where our verb (or predicate) consists of two or more words ("are selling", "have sold" etcetera) and you want to omit the second word ("selling" or "sold"), then you should probably watch out for the exact same word in the first part of the sentence ("selling" or "sold"). As you can see, this rule doesn't apply to your sentence, because in your sentence the verb is omitted entirely (not only the second part of it). What applies to you sentence is "rules" about construction "as [adjective] as [noun/phrase/clause]", where you can omit the verb (entirely) if your omission doesn't create ambiguity (see my post above).

The rule about "exact same word" is not going to work in normal English (https://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2639468), but probably useful to remember on the GMAT, because test makers love parallelism.

In my opinion, one should definitely use this rule "exact same word" on the GMAT when dealing with these auxiliaries: to be (is/are/was/were) + have/has/had.
The situation with "do/did" I think is more complicated, because they can substitute not only when Present/Past Simple verb is in the first part of the sentence, but also when infinitive is (I remember that there was a problem on this from official source, but I don't remember which one) - and probably in other situations.

As to modal verbs, I don't really know, because I haven't seen problems on this.
For example, would this sentence be correct on the GMAT (if put aside issue with pronouns)?
He has not done it, but he still can. "Do" is omitted in the second part of the sentence, and there's no "exact same word" in the first.
If anyone knows any official problems on this issue, please post them in this thread.

vishalpathak wrote:He is as depressed as they, but he soldiered onward anyway

I have read that for ellipsis to be correct, the missing word should exactly appear in the part of the sentence before the missing word.

In the above sentence, 'are' is missing but 'are' does not appear anywhere in the sentence. So I feel that this Ellipsis is flawed. The source of this is a flash card and it states that this statement is correct

Regards,
Vishal

ELLIPSIS is the omission of words whose presence is understood.

When two SIMPLE tense verbs are compared, it is common for the verb in the second clause to be omitted.
Correct: John runs as fast as Mary.
Conveyed meaning:
John runs as fast as Mary [runs].
The verb in brackets is omitted, but its presence is understood.

The two verbs do not have to agree in number.
Correct: John runs as fast as his brothers.
Conveyed meaning:
John runs as fast as his brothers [run].
The verb in brackets is omitted, but its presence is understood.

Note that it is not NECESSARY to omit the second verb.
Correct: John runs as fast as his brothers run.
Correct: John runs as fast as his brothers do.

Awkward: John runs as fast as they.
Technically, this sentence is correct, because the intended comparison is clear.
But ending a clause with a subject pronoun (he, she, they, etc.) feels awkward to most native speakers.
For this reason, most native speakers would NOT omit the second verb:
Correct: John runs as fast as they run.
Correct: John runs as fast as they do.

Awkward: He is as depressed as they.
As noted above, this sentence is technically correct, but most native speakers would not omit the second verb:
Correct: He is as depressed as they are.

Some verb forms consist of a helping verb + participle:
is running
have eaten
Here, is and have serve as helping verbs, while running and eaten serve as participles.
When a PARTICIPLE is omitted, it should appear in the same form earlier in the sentence.
Answer choice: The wines have been priced to sell, and they are.
Here, the intended meaning is as follows:
The wines have been priced to sell, and they are [selling].
But because selling does not appear earlier in the sentence, it should not be omitted from the second clause.
Thus, the answer choice should be eliminated.

GMATGuruNY wrote: ELLIPSIS is the omission of words whose presence is understood.

When two SIMPLE tense verbs are compared, it is common for the verb in the second clause to be omitted.
Correct: John runs as fast as Mary.
Conveyed meaning:
John runs as fast as Mary [runs].
The verb in brackets is omitted, but its presence is understood.

The two verbs do not have to agree in number.
Correct: John runs as fast as his brothers.
Conveyed meaning:
John runs as fast as his brothers [run].
The verb in brackets is omitted, but its presence is understood.

Note that it is not NECESSARY to omit the second verb.
Correct: John runs as fast as his brothers run.
Correct: John runs as fast as his brothers do.

Awkward: John runs as fast as they.
Technically, this sentence is correct, because the intended comparison is clear.
But ending a clause with a subject pronoun (he, she, they, etc.) feels awkward to most native speakers.
For this reason, most native speakers would NOT omit the second verb:
Correct: John runs as fast as they run.
Correct: John runs as fast as they do.

Awkward: He is as depressed as they.
As noted above, this sentence is technically correct, but most native speakers would not omit the second verb:
Correct: He is as depressed as they are.

Some verb forms consist of a helping verb + participle:
is running
have eaten
Here, is and have serve as helping verbs, while running and eaten serve as participles.
When a PARTICIPLE is omitted, it should appear in the same form earlier in the sentence.
Answer choice: The wines have been priced to sell, and they are.
Here, the intended meaning is as follows:
The wines have been priced to sell, and they are [selling].
But because selling does not appear earlier in the sentence, it should not be omitted from the second clause.
Thus, the answer choice should be eliminated.

This is brilliant! It clarifies matter a lot!

GMATGuruNY wrote: But ending a clause with a subject pronoun (he, she, they, etc.) feels awkward to most native speakers.
For this reason, most native speakers would NOT omit the second verb:
Correct: John runs as fast as they run.
Correct: John runs as fast as they do.

@Mitch - could you please provide any instance of official SC depicting above concept ?

What is GMAT's stand here ?

RBBmba@2014 wrote:

GMATGuruNY wrote: But ending a clause with a subject pronoun (he, she, they, etc.) feels awkward to most native speakers.
For this reason, most native speakers would NOT omit the second verb:
Correct: John runs as fast as they run.
Correct: John runs as fast as they do.

@Mitch - could you please provide any instance of official SC depicting above concept ?

What is GMAT's stand here ?

The GMAT will not test this issue.

vishalpathak wrote:He is as depressed as they, but he soldiered onward anyway

I have read that for ellipsis to be correct, the missing word should exactly appear in the part of the sentence before the missing word.

I think it is not about "same word" but about the "same tense". So, this sentence is:

He is as depressed as they (are).

So, both parts basically are in simple present, and hence the sentence seems fine. Request experts to correct me, if I am wrong.