GMAT Prep Test2 : A Study published in the British Journal .

[rohitmaram]

A study published in the British Medical Journal showed that women who ate nuts more than five times a week were about one third less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease as those who ate no nuts at all .

2. as women who ate
3. as those eating
4. than women eating
5. than were those who ate

I eliminated 1,2,3 based on incorrect usage : "more likely .... as"
In the practice test I got confused between 4 / 5 ..

I am always confused as to when to use the verbs [ in tis sentence "were" ] and when not to , in the sentences having " X were more likely than ... " construct .
I browsed thorugh the forum , but a rather simpler explanation is given using examples : 1) Jerry likes George more than he likes Elaine. and 2) Jerry likes George more than Elaine does. These examples are clear. But can you people help me understand why 4 is wrong here ? and can you please elaborate using a more complex example.

Thanks a ton !!

[RonPurewal]

A study published in the British Medical Journal showed that women who ate nuts more than five times a week were about one third less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease as those who ate no nuts at all .

2. as women who ate
3. as those eating
4. than women eating
5. than were those who ate

I eliminated 1,2,3 based on incorrect usage : "more likely .... as"
In the practice test I got confused between 4 / 5 ..

I am always confused as to when to use the verbs [ in tis sentence "were" ] and when not to , in the sentences having " X were more likely than ... " construct .
I browsed thorugh the forum , but a rather simpler explanation is given using examples : 1) Jerry likes George more than he likes Elaine. and 2) Jerry likes George more than Elaine does. These examples are clear. But can you people help me understand why 4 is wrong here ? and can you please elaborate using a more complex example.

Thanks a ton !!

in this case, it's not that complicated -- it's actually just an example of basic parallelism. remember that comparisons must involve parallel structures.

the two groups of women involved in the study were eating at exactly the same time as each other, so we must use PARALLEL TENSES.
the first construction uses "women who ate nuts" -- simple past tense verb. therefore, if there is a verb in the second construction, it MUST also be in the simple past tense. (you can't change tenses if you are talking about two simultaneous events in parallel.)

#4 switches to a present participle, breaking parallelism. #5 retains the simple past tense, thus preserving the parallel structure. so #5 is correct.

[vinny4nyc]

in this case, it's not that complicated -- it's actually just an example of basic parallelism. remember that comparisons must involve parallel structures.

the two groups of women involved in the study were eating at exactly the same time as each other, so we must use PARALLEL TENSES.
the first construction uses "women who ate nuts" -- simple past tense verb. therefore, if there is a verb in the second construction, it MUST also be in the simple past tense. (you can't change tenses if you are talking about two simultaneous events in parallel.)

#4 switches to a present participle, breaking parallelism. #5 retains the simple past tense, thus preserving the parallel structure. so #5 is correct.

Hi

Option B looks ok with the Tense part ..How do we eliminate B.

Cheers

[RonPurewal]

Option B looks ok with the Tense part ..How do we eliminate B.

Cheers

please read the preceding posts.

as the original poster points out, you can kill the first three options because they pair "more" with "as". ("more" goes with "than", not with "as".)

[vivs.gupta]

A study published in the British Medical Journal showed that women who ate nuts more than five times a week were about one third less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease as those who ate no nuts at all .

2. as women who ate
3. as those eating
4. than women eating
5. than were those who ate

I eliminated 1,2,3 based on incorrect usage : "more likely .... as"
In the practice test I got confused between 4 / 5 ..

I am always confused as to when to use the verbs [ in tis sentence "were" ] and when not to , in the sentences having " X were more likely than ... " construct .
I browsed thorugh the forum , but a rather simpler explanation is given using examples : 1) Jerry likes George more than he likes Elaine. and 2) Jerry likes George more than Elaine does. These examples are clear. But can you people help me understand why 4 is wrong here ? and can you please elaborate using a more complex example.

Thanks a ton !!

in this case, it's not that complicated -- it's actually just an example of basic parallelism. remember that comparisons must involve parallel structures.

the two groups of women involved in the study were eating at exactly the same time as each other, so we must use PARALLEL TENSES.
the first construction uses "women who ate nuts" -- simple past tense verb. therefore, if there is a verb in the second construction, it MUST also be in the simple past tense. (you can't change tenses if you are talking about two simultaneous events in parallel.)

#4 switches to a present participle, breaking parallelism. #5 retains the simple past tense, thus preserving the parallel structure. so #5 is correct.

Ron,
In the following example:

I saw a man cleaning the door.

'cleaning' is assumed to derive its tense from the main verb - saw. So we can assume that cleaning happened in the past.

Can't we use the same concept in option 4 and assume 'eating' was done in past?

[RonPurewal]

Ron,
In the following example:

I saw a man cleaning the door.

'cleaning' is assumed to derive its tense from the main verb - saw. So we can assume that cleaning happened in the past.

Can't we use the same concept in option 4 and assume 'eating' was done in past?

you are absolutely correct about the way the timeframes work here, but that's not the issue.
the issue is that "eating" creates a construction that isn't parallel to the other half of the comparison. since the correct answer here is exactly parallel to the other half, there's no doubt as to which version is better.

[thanghnvn]

Thank you Ron,
I agree with you that the choice E is more paralel because the second half of comparistion contains "were" as the first does

but look at choice D. D is still clear and not ambiguous. D can be a correct answer in other sc problems.

and looking at D, I see gmat is too perfect for this SC problem or the concept BEST CHOICE IS CORECT CHOICE is good rule to remember.

in many other sc problem, the official answer is worse than choice D but it is still the OA because it is the better/best choice.

do you agree with me?

[bimladevi7777]

Let us wait for Ron's comment.

Thank you Ron,
I agree with you that the choice E is more paralel because the second half of comparistion contains "were" as the first does

but look at choice D. D is still clear and not ambiguous. D can be a correct answer in other sc problems.

and looking at D, I see gmat is too perfect for this SC problem or the concept BEST CHOICE IS CORECT CHOICE is good rule to remember.

in many other sc problem, the official answer is worse than choice D but it is still the OA because it is the better/best choice.

do you agree with me?

[RonPurewal]

do you agree with me?

No.

"who ate"
"eating"
Not parallel.

"who ate"
"who ate"
Parallel.

Really, it's genuinely that simple.

[sharif10.ais.du2004]

A study published in the British Medical Journal showed that women who ate nuts more than five times a week were about one third less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease as those who ate no nuts at all .

2. as women who ate
3. as those eating
4. than women eating
5. than were those who ate

I eliminated 1,2,3 based on incorrect usage : "more likely .... as"
In the practice test I got confused between 4 / 5 ..

I am always confused as to when to use the verbs [ in tis sentence "were" ] and when not to , in the sentences having " X were more likely than ... " construct .
I browsed thorugh the forum , but a rather simpler explanation is given using examples : 1) Jerry likes George more than he likes Elaine. and 2) Jerry likes George more than Elaine does. These examples are clear. But can you people help me understand why 4 is wrong here ? and can you please elaborate using a more complex example.

Thanks a ton !!

in this case, it's not that complicated -- it's actually just an example of basic parallelism. remember that comparisons must involve parallel structures.

the two groups of women involved in the study were eating at exactly the same time as each other, so we must use PARALLEL TENSES.
the first construction uses "women who ate nuts" -- simple past tense verb. therefore, if there is a verb in the second construction, it MUST also be in the simple past tense. (you can't change tenses if you are talking about two simultaneous events in parallel.)

#4 switches to a present participle, breaking parallelism. #5 retains the simple past tense, thus preserving the parallel structure. so #5 is correct.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your nice explanation. In SC "Comparison" is my weakest area. I do not understand in comparison when I should use verbs such as "am/is/are/was/were/do/does/did" as in the Option (E) in this problem.

Could you provide me with few examples along with the reasons of using these auxiliary verbs.

[RonPurewal]

If the second half of the comparison is a form of "to be" (is, are, was, were, etc.), then it should correspond with another form of "to be" in the first part.
The correspondence is not 100% strict; there are other "verbs of being" that can also correspond to these ("look(s)", "seem(s)", etc.) For instance, Objects viewed in a car's side mirrors often seem larger than they actually [b]are.[/i]

"Do(es)", "did", etc. can basically correspond to any verb except "to be".

[RonPurewal]

MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY...

You can solve most comparison problems without thinking in such detail at all.

For most comparison problems, you can just LOOK AT THE OVERALL FORM of the ostensibly parallel items.
Then, judge them in a "beauty contest".

You can often use very basic idioms, too (e.g., more/less ... than, or as ADJ ... as).

Let's look at what we have here:
1/ 2/ 3/
"Less ... as" is wrong. "Less" goes with "than". All gone.

4/
women who ate...
those eating...
Ugly.

5/
women who ate...
those who ate...
Clear winner.

In this problem, you needn't worry about the details at all. In most comparison problems, the details are there to distract you from fundamental similarity/dissimilarity.

I.e., if you just "look at the forest, not the trees", you should find most comparison problems much easier than you otherwise would.

[CheungT939]

Dear Ron,

Will (D) be right if I made to following adjustment?

Pls see:

A study published in the British Medical Journal showed that women who ate nuts more than five times a week were about one third less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease as those who ate no nuts at all .

2. as women who ate
3. as those eating
4. than women eating -> than woman who ate (different than the E in that there is not a verb "were")
5. than were those who ate

Would the lack of verb "were" make (D) wrong?

[RonPurewal]

Choice D would be fine that way, too. (It might be a bit harder to read, just because the two parts of the comparison are somewhat far apart.)

You wouldn't have to decide between those versions, since both are correct.

[CheungT939]

Hi Ron, thanks again for your reply.

Here's another example from another PREPQuestion (I am writing only part of the sentence that is correct)

Dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do.

- if we take out the DO after roads, does it make the sentence incorrect?

Also, could you list a few sentences that are more complex that must require us to add the verb behind a comparison and ones that we do not.
(Illogical comparison, change of tense are 2 kinds that I know when we need to add the verb behind the sentence again) But please give more examples, your input would be really valuable to me. I will be taking the test within a week!!!

thank you so much!