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X rather than Y

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X rather than Y

by satishchandra » Wed Dec 07, 2011 12:21 am
One benefit of learning to speak language while learning to read it rather than seperately is that the student can more effective apply his or her knowledge in social settings.

A) rather than seperately
B) rather than independently
C) instead of seperately
D) instead of as seperate process
E) rather than in a sperate process

How can we test X rather than Y parallelism rule?
Source: Kaplan800
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by avik.ch » Wed Dec 07, 2011 1:11 am
"Instead of" is used only to compare nouns.

"Rather than" is used to compare almost every thing - nouns and verbs.

learning to read it - is an action so we need "rather than"

Left with only A,B and E.

A - "separately" is an adverb so it must modify something, but what is it modifying here ?? Its wrong

B - similar like A

E - right

Hope this helps !!
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by satishchandra » Wed Dec 07, 2011 1:59 am
avik.ch wrote:"Instead of" is used only to compare nouns.

"Rather than" is used to compare almost every thing - nouns and verbs.
Agreed.

Whenever we use say X rather than Y
X and Y MUST BE parallel.

Can you show X = ? and Y= ? after replacing underlined portion with your choice?
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by patanjali.purpose » Sun Dec 25, 2011 12:56 am
satishchandra wrote:One benefit of learning to speak language while learning to read it rather than seperately is that the student can more effective apply his or her knowledge in social settings.

A) rather than seperately
B) rather than independently
C) instead of seperately
D) instead of as seperate process
E) rather than in a sperate process
X RATHER THAN Y - X and Y should be in the same parts of speech. Here X 'while learning to read it' is a PHRASE (not very sure what kind of phrase it is. It could be an ADVERBIAL PHRASE or PREP PH). Therefore we need a PHRASE for Y. Only E fits in.

Moreover, we need preferance of X over Y so RATHER THAN is better suited. Drop C/D.
A/B we have just an adverb for Y - but not clear what does it modify. It appears SEPERATELY/INDEPENDENTLY modifies BENEFIT - but it does not make sense; it cannot modify TO SPEAK LANGUAGE as it is an infinitive phrase (noun phrase). Drop A/B. Only E left.
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by lunarpower » Wed Dec 28, 2011 3:37 pm
i received a private message regarding this thread.

first, there are several errors in this problem statement.
for instance,
* there should be "a" between "speak" and "language";
* "effective" should be "effectively";
* "separately" is spelled wrong.
PLEASE double-check your transcription when you write these things. if you are making this many errors in transcribing the problem statement itself, then we can't count on the fidelity of the answer choices, either.

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in any case,

* "instead of" ends with "of", which is a preposition. therefore, like other prepositions, it should be followed by a NOUN. ("rather than" has no such restriction; "rather than" can connect essentially any two parallel structures.)
e.g.
i bought a car rather than a truck --> this is ok
i bought a car instead of a truck --> this is ok
but...
my car was large rather than small --> this is ok
my car was large instead of small --> this is not ok, because "small" is not a noun.

there's also a slight difference in meaning (although i am 99.9999% sure that the gmat would never test something so subtle): "X instead of Y" implies that Y is some sort of standard, or is/was expected, but X has been substituted for it. on the other hand, "X rather than Y" just implies a choice between X and Y, with no implication as to any preference or standard.
so, i bought a car rather than a truck means that i had a choice between a car and a truck, and i chose a car. on the other hand, i bought a car instead of a truck implies that i was supposed to buy a truck, and/or that someone expected me to buy a truck, but i bought a car instead.

here, it doesn't make any sense that there would be a pre-existing expectation one way or the other, so "rather than" makes more sense than "instead of".
also, "separately" and "as a separate process" are not NOUNS, so "instead of" is not grammatically viable anyway (i.e., it's wrong).

presumably, the rationale for choosing (a) over (e) is simply that, relatively speaking, (a) is more compact / less wordy than (e).
(note that "wordiness" is NEVER something you should judge in individual answer choices; you should only judge it by comparing answer choices.)
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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