Natural gas vs oil

[EricKryk]

Though widely used for decades to fuel home heating systems, utility boilers, and industrial furnaces, natural gas has still accounted for far less of the energy consumed in the United States than has oil.

(A) natural gas has still accounted for far less of the energy consumed in the United States than has oil

(B) natural gas has still accounted for far less of the energy consumed in the United States as oil

(C) natural gas still has accounted for far less of the energy consumed in the United States as oil has

(D) still far less of the energy consumed in the United States has been accounted for by natural gas as by oil

(E) still far less of the energy consumed in the United States has been accounted for by natural gas than has oil

[Patrick_GMATFix]

Because the sentence starts with a modifier for natural gas, the underlined portion should begin with natural gas. The idiom "less than" is also tested. "less...as" is not correct. The full solution below is taken from the GMATFix App.



-Patrick

[[email protected]]

Hi EricKryk,

SCs that include lots of commas are usually built on either modification or parallelism rules. This SC can be broken down into 2 rules.

1) Modification - The part of the sentence that precedes the underlined portion is "descriptive" - it describes the noun that MUST come next in the sentence. That noun is "natural gas..." Eliminate D and E.

2) 2-part phrases - The word "less" (which appears in all the answers) must be followed by the word "THAN" at some point. Eliminate B and C.

Final Answer: A

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich