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41st question on GMAT Prep

by sidceg » Mon Jul 15, 2013 9:29 am
According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than under it.

A. than
B. than born
C. than they were
D. than there had been
E. than had been born

OA is A

I got this question as the last one on the GMAT Prep. In spite of having more than 6 minutes, I did not get this one right.

I would be be thankful if someone can come up with an explanation for why right answer is right and not just because it is the last one standing in POE.

Thank you.
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Mon Jul 15, 2013 9:40 am
You are simply comparing over to under - there is no need to reintroduce a verb to make this comparison ?
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Mon Jul 15, 2013 9:44 am
A is best because the comparison is simply "over the age of 30" to "under it" ('it' being "the age of 30"). When you have some form of the verb "to be" you also DON'T need to have a verb on both sides of the comparison - for instance, "I am older than Mark" is fine, and perhaps preferable to "I am older than Mark is" - so you don't need to match "were" in this comparison.

Some reasons to eliminate the other answers:

B implies than the women themselves were born under 30.

C has an ambiguous pronoun (are "they" the officials, the babies, or the women?) and a strange use of "were" (the babies were under 30?).

D is word salad ("there had been under it"!?).

E incorrectly uses the past perfect (the babies born to women under 30 weren't necessarily born before the babies born to women over 30).
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