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GMATPrep - comparison, effective sentence

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GMATPrep - comparison, effective sentence

by GMATMadeEasy » Mon Jun 13, 2011 5:21 am
Shoppers in sporting goods stores, unlike in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
A. in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
B. in department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not also buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
C. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but leave with only a basketball
D. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
E. department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone will not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball but will leave with only a basketball

OA is D

Could someone explain all concrete errors in A please.
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Mon Jun 13, 2011 5:38 am
GMATMadeEasy wrote:Shoppers in sporting goods stores, unlike in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
A. in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
B. in department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not also buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
C. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but leave with only a basketball
D. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
E. department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone will not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball but will leave with only a basketball

OA is D

Could someone explain all concrete errors in A please.
the main problem with A is the faulty parallelism drawn between not buying...but they leave. A would've been better with a parallel not buying...but [rather] leaving..., but that string of modifying clauses beginning with gerunds is awkward, choppy and stilted. D solves THAT stylistic problem by introducing the semi-colon, which is sort of like a full stop in the middle of the sentence.

The comparison is fine in A and is a non-issue. Although we have seen a bit of a tendency in official materials to prefer the "full" comparison (compare shoppers to THOSE in stores), rather than the "lean comparison" (with just the "in" to complete the comparison, leaving the explicit pronoun it), this is a rule of thumb - I don't think that there's anything grammatically wrong with the "unlike par"t in A (though the comparison is used to eliminate E).
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by GMATMadeEasy » Mon Jun 13, 2011 5:55 am
That's excellent. You attacked all possible points. Thank you !
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by EducationAisle » Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:07 am
Another way to look at it is that the idiom that is being in A is: "NOT X BUT Y"

So, X and Y should be structurally parallel for the sentence to be correct.

However, in A, X is a "phrase" (buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball) while Y is a "clause" (they leave with a basketball only) -> Not structurally parallel.
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by sameerballani » Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:15 am
My 2 cents:

The first point that should strike when you see UNLIKE is COMPARISON.
And if you check the comparison issue, you are left with ony option C and D.
And out of these eliminating C is not that tough considering it states the meaning ambigously.
GMATMadeEasy wrote:Shoppers in sporting goods stores, unlike in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
A. in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
B. in department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not also buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
C. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but leave with only a basketball
D. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well
E. department stores, shop impulsively very little; someone will not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball but will leave with only a basketball

OA is D

Could someone explain all concrete errors in A please.
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by atulmangal » Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:27 am
@sameerballani

@Geva explained in his initial post that comparison in Op A and Op B is fine...just less preferable
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by aspirant2011 » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:25 am
sameerballani wrote:My 2 cents:

The first point that should strike when you see UNLIKE is COMPARISON.
And if you check the comparison issue, you are left with ony option C and D.
And out of these eliminating C is not that tough considering it states the meaning ambigously.
can you please explain why C is exactly wrong.........I could make out one thing i,e the part after comma is not an IC.......is there any other thing which makes C wrong??????
Last edited by aspirant2011 on Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by honeysn » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:31 am
I have also selected C as answer. Please explain why C is wrong.

Also, in option D - the last words "as well" seems awkward.
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by atulmangal » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:39 am
i solved this question earlier and dropped Op C for this reason, expert please guide me, my reasoning here is correct or not??

Here is my reasoning...

Shoppers in sporting goods stores, unlike in department stores those in department stores, [Shoppers] do very little impulse shopping, AND [Shoppers] do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but [Shoppers] leave with only a basketball.

I think if we apply parallelism concept over there an AND (as shown in bold above) is needed which is missing in original Op C...because its a kind of list of items which we are connecting here...2 items are present and an AND is needed to connect the final element.

Please suggest this is correct or not???
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by sameerballani » Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:10 am
sameerballani wrote:My 2 cents:

The first point that should strike when you see UNLIKE is COMPARISON.
And if you check the comparison issue, you are left with ony option C and D.
And out of these eliminating C is not that tough considering it states the meaning ambigously.

Shoppers in sporting goods stores, unlike in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, not buying a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but they leave with a basketball only
C. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping, do not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang when they come in for a basketball, but leave with only a basketball

D. those in department stores, do very little impulse shopping; someone who comes in for a basketball will leave with a basketball only and not buy a pair of skis and a boomerang as well

OA is D

Could someone explain all concrete errors in A please.
[/quote]

The reasons why C seems wrong to me are-
1) The parallelism issue shown in the above post.
Also i feel that even if we have AND, still still will be not preferable. I am not sure.
Shoppers DO X , and Shoppers DO NOT/ NOT DO Y
I mean i feel both sides it should wither say what shoppers do or what shoppers don't do.. In case contrast is to be shown [as in above case], may be we need to use BUT ,but we can't use BUT in this case... Too confusing i guess.

2) However the major reason i eliminated it was because if we go by MEANING then first thing sentence says is that shoppers DO very little impulse shopping AND THEN IT EXPLAINS why author feels so by giving an example that THEY DO NOT buy boomerang and ski when they come for buying a basketball and buy ONLY a basketball.. SO IF we try to put all of these in parallel form we give all of them the same importance/value/hierarchy level [not getting the correct word :) ] BUT in actual they are not at same level.

Better construction might be something like-
Shoppers Do very little impulse shopping, not BUYING boomerang and ski when they come in for a basketball and LEAVING with only a basket ball.

I hope i make some sense

Thanks.
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Mon Jun 13, 2011 11:46 am
There's nothing grammatically wrong in C, but there's definitely a distorted/illogical meaning. The last few posts are close to putting their finger on the issue: C puts all three verbs on the same level: do very little impulse buying, do not buy skis and boomerang, leave with basketball. This is a conceptual mistake, rather than a grammar one: the last two portions are a lower level example of "very little impulse shopping", and should be separated from the main clause.

D correctly puts the first part (Do very little shopping) on a separate level above the remaining two clauses with the use of the semicolon separating verb one from its examples.
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by Target2009 » Mon Jun 13, 2011 12:24 pm
IMO - D
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by aspirant2011 » Mon Jun 13, 2011 6:12 pm
Geva@MasterGMAT wrote:There's nothing grammatically wrong in C, but there's definitely a distorted/illogical meaning. The last few posts are close to putting their finger on the issue: C puts all three verbs on the same level: do very little impulse buying, do not buy skis and boomerang, leave with basketball. This is a conceptual mistake, rather than a grammar one: the last two portions are a lower level example of "very little impulse shopping", and should be separated from the main clause.

D correctly puts the first part (Do very little shopping) on a separate level above the remaining two clauses with the use of the semicolon separating verb one from its examples.
Hi geva, isn't the usage of as well awkward in D????
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by phanideepak » Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:34 pm
aspirant2011 wrote:
Geva@MasterGMAT wrote:There's nothing grammatically wrong in C, but there's definitely a distorted/illogical meaning. The last few posts are close to putting their finger on the issue: C puts all three verbs on the same level: do very little impulse buying, do not buy skis and boomerang, leave with basketball. This is a conceptual mistake, rather than a grammar one: the last two portions are a lower level example of "very little impulse shopping", and should be separated from the main clause.

D correctly puts the first part (Do very little shopping) on a separate level above the remaining two clauses with the use of the semicolon separating verb one from its examples.
Hi geva, isn't the usage of as well awkward in D????
Hi Do you mean repetitive?

if the usage would have been NOT ONLY X BUT AlSO Y. Then the usage of as well would have been repetitive.

But here we want to signify that along with the event of they buying the basket ball they also don't buy something else. and one of the possible ways of doing that with NOT X BUT Y is to use as well in the end.

Please correct me if I understood you wrong.
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Tue Jun 14, 2011 5:07 am
aspirant2011 wrote:
Geva@MasterGMAT wrote:There's nothing grammatically wrong in C, but there's definitely a distorted/illogical meaning. The last few posts are close to putting their finger on the issue: C puts all three verbs on the same level: do very little impulse buying, do not buy skis and boomerang, leave with basketball. This is a conceptual mistake, rather than a grammar one: the last two portions are a lower level example of "very little impulse shopping", and should be separated from the main clause.

D correctly puts the first part (Do very little shopping) on a separate level above the remaining two clauses with the use of the semicolon separating verb one from its examples.
Hi geva, isn't the usage of as well awkward in D????
no, it's fine where it is. You actually need it there. Think about it: if you take out the as well, you don't know whether the impulse buyer buys the skis and boomerang as well as the basketball, or instead of the basketball. The additional phrase actually eliminates ambiguity.
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