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According to the National Science Foundation

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According to the National Science Foundation

by patanjali.purpose » Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:51 am
According to the National Science Foundation, in 2003 there were 198,113 female science and engineering graduate students, almost 42% of the graduate students in those fields, twice as much as 1981.
A-twice as much as 1981
B-twice as many as 1981
C-double the figure for 1981
D-double what it was in 1981
E-a number double that of 1981's

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Pls clarify following in C:
1) What does THE FIGURE refer to - "198,113 students" or '42% of students'?
2) "for 1981" - is this parallel with 'IN 2003'? Why FOR 1981 is correct? Would C be still correct, if C were 'double the figure IN 1981'
3) is D wrong bcoz of ambiguous IT only or there is some other reason as well? Would D be correct, if D were "double THE FIGURE was in 1981 / double THE FIGURE in 1981"?

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by GmatKiss » Wed Apr 18, 2012 12:06 pm
1) Figure = 198,113
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by killer1387 » Wed Apr 18, 2012 6:17 pm
According to the National Science Foundation, in 2003 there were 198,113 female science and engineering graduate students, almost 42% of the graduate students in those fields, twice as much as 1981.
A-twice as much as 1981
B-twice as many as 1981
C-double the figure for 1981
D-double what it was in 1981
E-a number double that of 1981's

1) What does THE FIGURE refer to - "198,113 students" or '42% of students'?
--> 198,113 students

2) "for 1981" - is this parallel with 'IN 2003'? Why FOR 1981 is correct? Would C be still correct, if C were 'double the figure IN 1981'
--> IMO 'double the figure IN 1981' is also correct; Also parallelism may not be the issue here (somewhat skeptical though). Its just the correct comparison of the figures for 2003 and 1981.

3) is D wrong bcoz of ambiguous IT only or there is some other reason as well? Would D be correct, if D were "double THE FIGURE was in 1981 / double THE FIGURE in 1981"?
--> "what it was" is wordy; the same can be written "the figure"; "IT" is ambiguous and wrong;If you need to change the construction it would be
double WHAT THE FIGURE was in 1981--> "WHAT THE FIGURE WAS " IS CERTAINLY REDUNDANT AND WORDY

double THE FIGURE in 1981--> THIS IS CORRECT
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by patanjali.purpose » Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:51 pm
killer1387 wrote:According to the National Science Foundation, in 2003 there were 198,113 female science and engineering graduate students, almost 42% of the graduate students in those fields, twice as much as 1981.

1) What does THE FIGURE refer to - "198,113 students" or '42% of students'?
--> 198,113 students
GmatKiss wrote:1) Figure = 198,113

Why do you think THE FIGURE refer to 198,113 students?
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by killer1387 » Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:58 pm
patanjali.purpose wrote:
killer1387 wrote:According to the National Science Foundation, in 2003 there were 198,113 female science and engineering graduate students, almost 42% of the graduate students in those fields, twice as much as 1981.

1) What does THE FIGURE refer to - "198,113 students" or '42% of students'?
--> 198,113 students
GmatKiss wrote:1) Figure = 198,113

Why do you think THE FIGURE refer to 198,113 students?
According to the National Science Foundation, in 2003 there were 198,113 female science and engineering graduate students, MODIFIER - I, MODIFIER - II.

in modifier - II the figure pertains to main sentence.
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by lunarpower » Sun May 06, 2012 9:13 am
i received a message about this thread.
patanjali.purpose wrote::
1) What does THE FIGURE refer to - "198,113 students" or '42% of students'?
the default for any modifier set off by commas -- unless the context very strongly and clearly suggests otherwise -- is to pertain to the nearest possible referent, i.e., the stuff on the other side of the comma.
so, this particular modifier would be taken to refer to "42% of students...".

i understand why this modifier is a little bit annoying -- specifically, it would also make sense if applied to "198,113 students" -- but the general trend, in interpreting modifiers such as this one, is to assign them to the nearest possible stuff that they can modify.
more importantly, this problem has a clear official precedent: it is closely based -- perhaps a little too closely based -- on #4 from the 11th edition of the official guide.
2) "for 1981" - is this parallel with 'IN 2003'? Why FOR 1981 is correct? Would C be still correct, if C were 'double the figure IN 1981'
this is not a parallel structure. one part is describing an actual state of affairs that prevailed at the mentioned time, while the other is just a statistic mentioned in retrospect.

the reason you don't need "in 1981" is that there is no mention of an explicit event that actually occurred in 1981. that is, if the sentence actually mentioned a past-tense event that occurred in that year, then you would use "in", as in we had our first child in 1981.
on the other hand, "the figure for 1981" is a statistic that continues to exist even after the actual end of the calendar year 1981. this statistic is, in a very real sense, permanent.
if you used "the figure in 1981", you would be suggesting that historical value of some figure that later changed. for instance, the current exchange rate between country x and country y is 9 to 1; the figure in 1981 was 11 to 1.

there is also, of course, an element of idiom here. there's no particularly good reason why it should be "for" and not, say, "of".
3) is D wrong bcoz of ambiguous IT only or there is some other reason as well?
the pronoun is not just "ambiguous", it's actually wrong. there's no noun for which it can stand.
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