Comparisons, M SC 2003 Guide, Urgent, exam tmr!

[nehajadoo]

Hi,
I could not start a new topic under General Verbal, not sure why.

This is from the Comparisons problem set:

8. Three times more students attended the prom this year than last year.

My version: Three times as many students attended the prom this year than did last yr.

Ans Key:
Three times more students attended the prom this year than did last year.

Is My version incorrect? If yes, they why?


Thanks!

[tim]

"as many" does not match up with "than", so your version is incorrect..

[ilyana777]

Hello!

To me the right answer (Three times more students attended the prom this year than did last year) sounds as if students are compared to last year.

My pick would be:
The number of students attended the prom this year is three times as great as the number of students attended the prom last year.

If anybody could confirm this, I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

Edited:
I thought a lot about comparisons and after reading thread forecast-t7862.html
I came to a conclusion that the original sentence (without did) was ok. It is a case of ellipsis. There is no ambiguity, so we can omit part of the clause - the subject and verb. Thought, I'm not sure about the subject. Even if we put it in the sentence, it wouldn't sound well:
Three times more students attended the prom this year than they did last year.

[jlucero]

Hello!

To me the right answer (Three times more students attended the prom this year than did last year) sounds as if students are compared to last year.

My pick would be:
The number of students attended the prom this year is three times as great as the number of students attended the prom last year.

If anybody could confirm this, I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

Edition:
I thought a lot about comparisons and after reading thread forecast-t7862.html
I came to a conclusion that the original sentence (without did) was ok. It is a case of ellipsis. There is no ambiguity, so we can omit part of the clause - the subject and verb. Thought, I'm not sure about the subject. Even if we put it in the sentence, it wouldn't sound well:
Three times more students attended the prom this year than they did last year.

(1) There's always going to be more than one way that you can phrase a meaning, so don't just look for the one way that you would write it. Your sentence is mostly correct, but I edited it slightly:

The number of students that attended the prom this year is three times greater/more/larger than the number of students that attended the prom last year.

(2) In regards to your edit, you don't always need an extra verb to compare things, but it really helps to clarify meaning when used properly.

Possibly ambiguous: I was more X than Y.
Clear: I was more X than I was Y.
Clear: I was more X than Y was.

[ilyana777]

Thank you very much for your reply!

Though, I'm still not convinced that "Three times more students attended the prom this year than did last year" is correct. This is not OG, so I can question right answers, can't I?

All is clear in your example:

Clear: I was more X than Y was.

I and Y are subjects.
However, in the given sentence "Three times more students attended the prom this year than did last year" there is no subject in the second part. "Last year" is an adverbial modifier, but a reader may be confused by it (as if "last year" played the role of a subject).
On the other hand, a reader may turn out to be a smart one and won't be confused. It hard for me to define where the limits of ambiguity lie.

The number of students that attended the prom this year is three times greater/more/larger than the number of students that attended the prom last year.

Just in case:
In Manhattan GMAT Prep The new standart 4th edition (SC) on page 256 there is a tip about comparison:
Right: The man is FIVE TIMES AS OLD AS his grandson.
Wrong: The man is FIVE TIMES OLDER THAN his grandson.
Probably, it has been already edited.


And while we at the subject of comparison, there is a tricky problem #65 in OG 13th. I think one could come to the right answer only by eliminating the other options. The correct answer has comparison, in which in the second part the subject is omitted. It is alright with me as long as the first part has this subject. My problem is that besides our necessary subject the first part (which is a composite sentence) has also another pair of subject+verb, namely: life-forms emerged (and they are nearer to the comparison than the first subject). I assume that a reader shouldn't be confused by such small details...

[jnelson0612]

Hi ilyana,
The comparison is between how many attended last year vs. how many attended this year. I've boiled the sentence down to this:

"Three times more attended last year than did this year."

Three times more students 1) attended last year
THAN
2) did this year.

I'm saying that three times more attended (last year) than attended (this year). Good comparison.

It may help you to think of the sentence this way:
"Three times more students attended last year than attended this year." Does that make more sense to you? If so, then just notice that "did" is just standing in for the second "attended".

With regards to the "last year" and "this year", you are correct that each is an adverbial modifier. "last year" is modifying "attended" and "this year" is modifying "did" (which is standing in for "attended").

You can see some similar problems in the GMAT Verbal Review book, #103 and Official Guide 13 #125.

[ilyana777]

Thank you!

I've looked through all the problems in OG13 SC section and read many good explanations here; I don't have any problem with the sentence:
"Three times more attended last year than did this year."

I understood why "did" is necessary. Without it there is ambiguity:
"attended this year" or "will attend this year". "Did" stands for "attended", eliminating the latter interpretation.

Though, it is ok (I think) when in the second half of comparison we see only "last year"/"yesterday" or something like that. I saw one or two problems where it was fine (#94 OG13). "Last year" allows only one interpretation with the verb in Past Simple.
If there is any evidence against it in official questions (where "last year" without a verb was a wrong answer), I would like to know it..

I'm not saying that we can't use verbs in comparison. Using verbs and helping verbs with adverbial phrase (as in #125 OG13) is alright as well.




The situation is different with "this year"/"this month"/"today" - we can use a variety of tenses with these adverbial phrases, so it is not a good idea to put them alone (without a verb). There is no proof from OG (at least, I didn't find), I just read it in one of Ron's posts. That's why I consider the sentence above ("Three times more attended last year than did this year.") correct and omitting "did" impossible. Though, thinking about the difference between "this year" and "last year" in comparisons is probably somewhat petty at this stage of my preparation.

However, returning to original sentence (Three times more students attended the prom this year than last year.), which has "last year" in the second half of the comparison, I'm convinced for the present time that both options are ok: with and without "did". This conviction is based on the two mentioned questions (#94 and #125 from OG13).

This forum is really helpful.

My exam is the day after tomorrow...

[jnelson0612]

I hope that your exam went well! :-)

[ilyana777]

Thank you!

I think I'm not supposed to write about things unconnected with the topic of the thread, so you can go ahead and wipe this message off. I was thinking of posting it at Manhattan GMAT, but I'm not allowed to that forum.

I want to teach this exam so I aimed at 780. Quite ambitious it was, given that I had 660 as a starting point and one and a half months to prepare. So I didn't get it. My score is 740 (Q - 48, V - 42). As I see it now, I can say to myself, "Congratulations"; though I can't apply for the position, for instance, of Manhattan GMAT instructor (besides, I don't have much teaching experience either).

During my preparation I was concentrating solely on Verbal part (SC in particular) and came up with some tips for people who have trouble with time.

If anybody is interested:
1) The most time-consuming questions (at least, for me, and I think for people who are not natives) are Reading Comprehension questions. I decided to skip (I mean pick answers at a guess) questions of the second text that appeared at the exam. Maybe I should have done it with questions of one more text as well because there still wasn't enough time for me...
2) I think it is very important to prepare SC part properly, because these questions can save time; they usually much shorter than other questions in Verbal part. Futhermore, to chose correctly one must know rules and can't rely just on logic.

It seems that I still have a lot of work and study to do, but preparing for the test I discovered that I really like it. The test feels like sport.

As I said before, this forum is a good help for all who want to do the exam; it was the main source of materials for me and it was quite enough of theory and explanations.

[jnelson0612]

Congratulations on your 740! That is an awesome score!

If you want to teach, you just need a 99th percentile. The last I saw that was around a 760 (it could have changed, of course). There is a lot of information on our website about applying to teach for us (once you get a 99th percentile score). :-)