Sentence Correction

GMATGuruNY wrote:

In Hungary, as in much of Eastern Europe, an overwhelming proportion of women work, many of which are in middle management and light industry.

A. as in much of Eastern Europe, an overwhelming proportion of women work, many of which are in
B. as with much of Eastern Europe, an overwhelming proportion of women works, many in
C. as in much of Eastern Europe, an overwhelming proportion of women work, many of them in
D. like much of Eastern Europe, an overwhelming proportion of women works, and many are
E. like much of Eastern Europe, an overwhelming proportion of women work, many are in

Quick approach:

A comparison must compare apples to apples: the right two things must be compared. In the SC above, what is happening in Hungary must be compared to what is happening in much of Eastern Europe. Eliminate B, D and E.

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The noun proportion is singular when it refers to a non-countable noun:

An overwhelming proportion of the female population works.

GMATGuruNY wrote: Use as to compare prepositional phrases:

In Hungary, as in much of Eastern Europe...

Use like to compare the nouns themselves:

Hungary, like much of Eastern Europe....

RBBmba@2014 wrote: Hi GMATGuruNY - Isn't the population a COUNTABLE NOUN ? (I think, population means NUMBER,which is COUNTABLE)

Could you please shed light on the USAGE of AS and LIKE in COMPARISON ?

What I know is that in COMPARISON GMAT SC, AS is used with CLAUSE and LIKE is used with NOUN/PRONOUN. What are OTHER USAGE of AS and LIKE that we can see on GMAT COMPARISON SC ?

GMATGuruNY wrote: In general:
as serves to compare CLAUSES.
like serves to compare NOUNS.

In the OA above, as serves to compare the following clauses:
In Hungary [an overwhelming proportion of women work], as in much of Eastern Europe [an overwhelming proportion of women work].

GMATGuruNY wrote: The noun proportion is singular when it refers to a non-countable noun:

An overwhelming proportion of the female population works.

The noun proportion is plural when it refers to a countable noun:

An overwhelming proportion of women work.

RBBmba@2014 wrote:

In the OA above, as serves to compare the following clauses:
In Hungary [an overwhelming proportion of women work], as in much of Eastern Europe [an overwhelming proportion of women work].

So, here ELLIPSIS at play. Right ?

GMATGuruNY wrote: The noun proportion is singular when it refers to a non-countable noun:

An overwhelming proportion of the female population works.

The noun proportion is plural when it refers to a countable noun:

An overwhelming proportion of women work.

It appears BIT TRICKY to me to apprehend the VARIATIONS (in NUMBER) the noun proportion has, as mentioned above. Could you please provide any insight to easily comprehend and indentify such NOUNs on GMAT ?

And could you please shed light on this - like proportion, are there any SIMILAR NOUNs that have such VARIATIONS (in NUMBER) and that are frequent on GMAT ?

Also, kindly clarify for the following phrase what should be the NUMBER of proportion (Singular or Plural) - An overwhelming proportion of ELEPHANT work, in which the ELEPHANT is THE RACE as a whole ?

GMATGuruNY wrote:

GMATGuruNY wrote: The noun proportion is singular when it refers to a non-countable noun:

An overwhelming proportion of the female population works.

The noun proportion is plural when it refers to a countable noun:

An overwhelming proportion of women work.

A + quantity word = PLURAL:
A number of X are Y.
A proportion of X are Y.
A percentage of X are Y.
In each case, the conveyed meaning is SEVERAL X ARE Y, so the verb is PLURAL.
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a proportion of X and a number of X must each be given a plural verb, regardless of the nature of X.

RBBmba@2014 wrote:Am I missing something ? Kindly clarify.