Sentence Correction

Bihar is India's poorest state, with an annual per capita income of $111, lower than in the most impoverished countries of the world.

A) lower than in
B) lower than that of
C) and lower than that of
D) which is lower than in
E) which is lower than it is in

The answer is B. My guess was E (explanation of not E: use of the relative clause and the pronoun 'it' allow the correct comparison to be made, but the construction is needlessly wordy)

My question:

why there is no 'that or which' referring to 'annual per capita income of $111'?


Many thansk!

i chose E as well so i'd be curious to hear this solution. thanks for posting!

Usage of 'that or which' would be incorrect here.

In GMAT, 'that' or 'which' cannot refer to an entire phrase - 'annual per capita income of $111', they should refer only to a Noun.

'which' in particular should refer to the immediately preceding closest Noun before comma.

'which' in particular should refer to the immediately preceding closest Noun before comma.

is there a rule for 'that'?

money9111 wrote:'which' in particular should refer to the immediately preceding closest Noun before comma.

is there a rule for 'that'?

If its an essential modifier you use that. If its non-essential you use which. If its a non-essential modifier it will be set off by commas. You will see all of this once you start the SC guide. This is one of the things that actually isn't that complicated, there are other things that will have you scratching your head though...lol

so is it safe to say that 'which' will always be set off by commas?

money9111 wrote:so is it safe to say that 'which' will always be set off by commas?

hmmmm....its not a grammatical rule and if you see it in conjunction with a preposition it may not be set off by commas. For example, "in which" or "to which" might not be set off by commas.

One thing I'll say, is don't make the same mistake I did. Do not look for shortcuts. I did that and failed miserably, attempt to learn the underlying grammar even beyond what MGMAT will provide.

right.. that's what I plan on doing... maybe I should hold off on this until I reach that section in the SC guide... i feel like I should go through PowerScore again... but while i'm in my MGMAT class I just want to focus on their materials and go at their pace :-/

money9111 wrote:right.. that's what I plan on doing... maybe I should hold off on this until I reach that section in the SC guide... i feel like I should go through PowerScore again... but while i'm in my MGMAT class I just want to focus on their materials and go at their pace :-/

Do you, I don't know your schedule, but I would go through the PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible right now. That book is long and takes a lot of time, and i think its a lot better than MGMAT's guide (which I think is worthless). If you have the time, begin that book. Additionally, if you have the time, just check out a basic book on grammar from the library. Nothing test prep orientation, just basic/fundamental grammar. I'm doing that now. When you make a new discovery PLEASE post the grammar lesson in my blog in the other forum. I really want to conquer this.

my plan was to get through the MGMAT course, following their process... THEN for that month of self study I'll go through the CR bible...as well as the SC bible again... couple that with going through the MGMAT Quant guides again and redoing all of the problems...

THEN... tackling all of the problems in the kaplan books, og, reviews.. blah blah blah...

I want to soak in all of the material... know it back and forth.. inside and out... then really drill it home

Question for you. Does manhattan gmat allow you to take practice CATs on site to simulate the test day experience?

I don't believe so... I believe Kaplan is the only organization that has this "feature"... it's a USP for them....

osirus0830,
'...When you make a new discovery PLEASE post the grammar lesson in my blog in the other forum...'

Could you pls add link to your grammar post in your BTG signature. So that we can reach there quickly instead of searching in forum.

IMO B