1000SC Question no 381

[samyak]

381. In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeologist Schliemann cut through Troy and uncovered a civilization a thousand years older as was the city Homer's heroes knew.
(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew
(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes
(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes
(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew
(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes

please help me answering the question. Do we have any rules on where to use ancient & where to use older?

[beat_gmat_09]

381. In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeologist Schliemann cut through Troy and uncovered a civilization a thousand years older as was the city Homer's heroes knew.
(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew
(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes
(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes
(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew
(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes

please help me answering the question. Do we have any rules on where to use ancient & where to use older?

older is the correct expression of measurement here hence rule out B,D
as us used to show similarity and used as conjunction with clause or prepositional phrase rule out A, E is not idiomatic,
Hence C.

[electrico]

(A) older as was the city Homer’s heroes knew

--- needs older than
(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer’s heroes

-- correct
(C) older than was the city known to Homer’s heroes

-- a civilization a is not parallel with was the city known
(D) more ancient of a city than Homer’s heroes knew

--needs a than

(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer’s heroes

-- awkward

[FightWithGMAT]

IMO E

We cannot compare civilization and City.
We have to compare a civilization of a city and one that known to X

One= another civilization

[grockit_andrea]

The real issue isn't "older" versus "more ancient" here; IMO, "more ancient" is awkward, but it's not incorrect, and there's no strict rule that I know of telling you when to use them. You need "than" for the comparison here, and E has the phrase "older of a city," which is just too wordy. So that narrows it down to B and C. C has "was," which is neither parallel nor logical. "Was" has no counterpart in the earlier part of the sentence, which violates parallelism. In addition, the past tense "was" is incorrect here because it's a 1000 years older (or more ancient) NOW, so present tense would be used here if any verb was necessary. I know that the fact that the description is of Homer's heroes knowing the city in the past makes past tense seem logical, but the adjective phrase is talking about the age of the city in the present day. None of which is terribly important, since "was" shouldn't be there in the first place, but if you missed the parallelism issue, the verb tense issue could be helpful here in POE.
Anyway, based on that, I'm saying B.

[beat_gmat_09]

The real issue isn't "older" versus "more ancient" here; IMO, "more ancient" is awkward, but it's not incorrect, and there's no strict rule that I know of telling you when to use them. You need "than" for the comparison here, and E has the phrase "older of a city," which is just too wordy. So that narrows it down to B and C. C has "was," which is neither parallel nor logical. "Was" has no counterpart in the earlier part of the sentence, which violates parallelism. In addition, the past tense "was" is incorrect here because it's a 1000 years older (or more ancient) NOW, so present tense would be used here if any verb was necessary. I know that the fact that the description is of Homer's heroes knowing the city in the past makes past tense seem logical, but the adjective phrase is talking about the age of the city in the present day. None of which is terribly important, since "was" shouldn't be there in the first place, but if you missed the parallelism issue, the verb tense issue could be helpful here in POE.
Anyway, based on that, I'm saying B.

Hi Andrea,

Can you please explain with example why "was" is incorrect and the sentence be in present tense,
I got a slight idea of what explaination which you have given, but still not able to digest.

This question warns to be very carful in POE !!

[sumanr84]

+1 for C
Sentence has to be in past tense since we are talking about a past event here and that is noticable in the earlier parts of the sentence e.g. uncovered ( past tense)
I think "was" corresponds to "the city" here in option ,
C. older than was the city known to Homer’s heroes

if we invert the S-V, we can rephrase the option as below,

older than the city that was known to Homer’s heroes

[beat_gmat_09]

+1 for C
Sentence has to be in past tense since we are talking about a past event here and that is noticable in the earlier parts of the sentence e.g. uncovered ( past tense)
I think "was" corresponds to "the city" here in option ,
C. older than was the city known to Homer’s heroes

if we invert the S-V, we can rephrase the option as below,

older than the city that was known to Homer’s heroes

@ sumanr84, i agree with you, do you think more... than (even if it is idiomatic) is correct here ?

I am confused on the usage of more and older.
Here 1000 years is specific period of time and i think for comparison more does not fit as it determines larger quantity and
deals with uncountable nouns, whereas we have a specific period - 1000 years.

Someone Please throw more light on this.

[grockit_andrea]

Ok, fair enough: "uncovered" is a past tense verb. But "was" is still incorrect, because it makes it sound like the city was that old in the time of Homer's heroes, when the time at issue is actually the more recent past in which the archaeologist was doing his uncovering. And the parallelism issue is still very much at play here. Samyak, can we have the OA, please?

[aspirant2010]

I am on B because with civilization ancient word is used and B stands best out of all the three options..............

[akhpad]

As Andrea A. explained, I agree with her. I also checked at other places and correct answer is B. Here, we can say that B is the best.

But "more ancient" seems to awkward.

As this is not OG problem, we can question against correct answer as well.