Sentence Correction

lunarpower wrote:

gurudev wrote:I Have one doubt, in using the construction "five time greater than". I construe that using five times and "greater or more" at the same time may be taken as redundancy.

not true. in fact, not only is "x is five times greater than y" NOT redundant, its meaning is actually different from that of "x is five times y".

(warning: the discussion that follows is actually more quant-appropriate; for verbal it's sufficient to realize that there's no redundancy and that the meanings are different)

first, consider percentage differences, for which the difference is obvious:
X is 50% of Y --> X is half as big as Y
X is 50% greater than Y --> X is 1.5 times as big as Y
that's a stark contrast; not only are the different, but one implies that X < y while the other implies that X > Y.

now, more pertinent:
X is five times Y, or X is five times as great as Y --> X = 5Y
X is five times greater than Y --> X = Y + 5Y, or X = 6Y
when you say "so-and-so-many times greater than", you're actually referring to a quantity that many times over and above the original quantity, not just a multiple of the original quantity.

https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-sentenc ... gurus.html
i thought this was a good clarification on greater than vs. more than
question above (187) is an idiom question... as many... as

lunarpower wrote: here's a simplified rule that will work:
in formal written english, if you are talking about an increase in a single statistic, you use GREATER. if you are counting things, and NOT referring to 'the number' or 'the population' or any other single statistic, you use MORE - always as an adjective or adverb:
the population of filipinos is greater than it was 10 years ago
there are more filipinos than there were 10 years ago

lunarpower wrote:

kiranlegend wrote:hmm.. i read in kaplan book that greater than is appropriate when desfcribng numbers alone but more than should be used when describing the numbers of objects or when making comparions ( greater than one hundred and more than one hundred fish).. in that sense.. here the answer should be B right??

am i missing something, please explain?

when the debate gets to a point like this, there's only one way to resolve the issue. fortunately, it's very simple. here it is:

if source X (which is not the official guide) disagrees with the official line on the issue, then the official problem wins.