aflaam wrote:hello Mitch,
can you confirm my understanding of omitted word and usage of past perfect
-->Omitted word in OA is accounted. Since accounted appears in earlier part, we can drop it second part.
-->Past perfect is not used because any previous elections make sequence of events abundantly clear.
The OA implies the following:
Soaring television costs accounted for more than half the spending in the presidential campaign of 1992, a greater proportion than [the proportion] in any previous election.
The portion in red can be considered either a SUMMATIVE MODIFIER (which serves to SUM UP the preceding clause) or an APPOSITIVE (which serves to define the preceding noun phrase).
How we classify the phrase in red is of little importance.
What matters is how this phrase FUNCTIONS.
On the GMAT, it is VERY common for an SC to end with COMMA + COMPARISON PHRASE.
The comparison phrase will generally include
than or
as.
The purpose of the comparison phrase will be to EXPLAIN or DEFINE a data point discussed in the preceding clause.
Official examples:
Soaring television costs accounted for more than half the spending in the presidential campaign of 1992, a greater proportion than in any previous election.
In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than the 1978 harvest.
Lake Baikal holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.
Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, fewer than have been killed by bee stings.
Companies in the United States are providing job training and general education for nearly eight million people, as many as are enrolled in the nation's four-year colleges and universities.
In each of the OAs above, the comparison phrase in red serves to explain the data point in blue.
As noted above, whether these comparison phrases are classified as appositives, absolute phrases, or summative modifiers is irrelevant.
What matters is how they all function:
Each serves to explain a data point in the preceding clause.
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