Minivans carry as many as seven passengers

[KathyL227]

hi,
i'm sorry, but i can't tell which parts are questions and which parts are just commentary.

if you are going to post so many things in one post, it's crucial that you...
...1/ separate different ideas with line breaks (= empty lines);
...2/ write questions that end with "?".

thank you.

The 2nd question is about choice D:

Here is my understanding: The reason for eliminate D, besides the one you mentioned: if the sentence construct in this way (Minivans, carrying as many as seven passengers, compared with most sport utility vehicles, cost less, get better gas mileage, ... ), "compared with most ..." is somehow wordy. As only if "carry", "cost", "get"... are constructed grammatically parallel, "compared with most ..." is necessary here to indicate the logical relations of the verbs (V1 VS V2-V5).

Is my above understanding correct?

I cited the following example from OG15 and I feel the question below is similar. Am I correct?
Similar example is: in OG 15: ... the planet were dated at 3,4 million years old and thus was the earliest evidence on the earth that ... (the "thus" here functions in the similar way to "compared with.." indicates the logical relationship of the verbs.)

[RonPurewal]

i'm sorry, but i can't tell which part is actually your question/hypothesis.

...but:

• still no line breaks—you're still dumping several different thoughts into one big paragraph.

• i cannot figure out what 'v1 vs v2-v5' means.

• if something is 'wordy', then the 'wordiness' should be obvious—it should NEVER need an explanation.
if you feel the need to EXPLAIN WHY something is (supposedly) 'wordy', then ... it probably isn't.
e.g.,
Persons engaged in athletic endeavors should perform stretching exercises.
Athletes should stretch.
THIS is an (admittedly exaggerated) example of 'wordy vs. not wordy'.
the difference is obvious; clearly it would be a waste of time to try to 'explain' it.

[RonPurewal]

another issue with that choice is the placement of 'compared to xxxx'.

if it's placed there, then you have this:
...carrying as many as seven passengers, compared with most sport utility vehicles...

this placement is at best confusing, and at worst disingenuous.

if you were not already familiar with the sentence, you'd probably read that version as "oh, okay, they're comparing the seating capacity of minivans with the seating capacity of SUV's."
oops.
not the intended meaning.

[KathyL227]

i'm sorry, but i can't tell which part is actually your question/hypothesis.

...but:

• still no line breaks—you're still dumping several different thoughts into one big paragraph.

• i cannot figure out what 'v1 vs v2-v5' means.

• if something is 'wordy', then the 'wordiness' should be obvious—it should NEVER need an explanation.
if you feel the need to EXPLAIN WHY something is (supposedly) 'wordy', then ... it probably isn't.
e.g.,
Persons engaged in athletic endeavors should perform stretching exercises.
Athletes should stretch.
THIS is an (admittedly exaggerated) example of 'wordy vs. not wordy'.
the difference is obvious; clearly it would be a waste of time to try to 'explain' it.

got it. Thanks.

[KathyL227]

another issue with that choice is the placement of 'compared to xxxx'.

if it's placed there, then you have this:
...carrying as many as seven passengers, compared with most sport utility vehicles...

this placement is at best confusing, and at worst disingenuous.

if you were not already familiar with the sentence, you'd probably read that version as "oh, okay, they're comparing the seating capacity of minivans with the seating capacity of SUV's."
oops.
not the intended meaning.

Ron,
Thanks.
I can understand what you want to explain to me. But another question came out: if the placement of 'compared to xxxx' is places as in A:
Minivans, carry as many as 7 passengers and, compared to XXX, cost less, ......
why in this form, it is definitely comparing with SUVs about cost, mileage... ?
Thanks.
Kathy

[RonPurewal]

Minivans, carry as many as 7 passengers and, compared to XXX, cost less, ......
why in this form, it is definitely comparing with SUVs about cost, mileage... ?
Thanks.
Kathy

there's no alternative interpretation. (it's after 'and', so it is certainly not describing the stuff before 'and'!)

[KathyL227]

Minivans, carry as many as 7 passengers and, compared to XXX, cost less, ......
why in this form, it is definitely comparing with SUVs about cost, mileage... ?
Thanks.
Kathy

there's no alternative interpretation. (it's after 'and', so it is certainly not describing the stuff before 'and'!)

Thanks.
I suddenly understand when you said

(it's after 'and', so it is certainly not describing the stuff before 'and'

[RonPurewal]

excellent.

[MaggieW980]

Hi, Ron！

Why the use of ‘’compared with“ is right here？
Because you have said that the compared with/to can not have other comparison indicator.
Like this sentence:
Compared to GMAT, GRE is much easier. This is a wrong sentence because of comparison indicator.
But here it used as a correct answer.

Can you please explain this?

[MaggieW980]

excellent.

Hi, Ron！

Why the use of ‘’compared with“ is right here？
Because you have said that the compared with/to can not have other comparison indicator.
Like this sentence:
Compared to GMAT, GRE is much easier. This is a wrong sentence because of comparison indicator.
But here it used as a correct answer.

Can you please explain this?

[RonPurewal]

this is already discussed in the thread. have you read the entire thread?

it's a non-issue, because the same thing is present in all 5 choices. (the problem editors probably just overlooked this issue, because it's not actually tested in the problem.)

[AvinashR698]

Jimmyyeh1982, was your question not addressed by Ron's initial post?

The first "and" joins "carry..." to the entire list "cost...,allow..., and have...." The second "and" joins "in" to "out." The final "and" along with the three final commas joins "cost...,allow..., and have...."

Would a simpler sentence with a similar structure help?

Doug and Jean spent Christmas with his parents, and Thanksgiving and Labor day with her parents.

Thanks for the reply mschwrtz! I do get this.. But I want to understand whats the difference between :

Minivans carry as many as seven passengers and, compared with most sport utility

Minivans carry as many as seven passengers, and compared with most sport utility -- Does this sentence still convey the point that the first sentence conveys ?? Here i have just switched places for " comma" and first "and" .

Thanks..

nope, you can't switch that comma.

in this sentence, the modifier is "compared with most sport utility vehicles". therefore, since we are blocking off this modifier with commas, we need the first comma to be placed directly at the beginning of this modifier.

in general, the construction "X, and Y" is used when the elements X and Y are themselves clauses (i.e., each could stand on its own as a complete sentence). if the word "and" is used to connect 2 smaller elements -- that is, elements that are not complete clauses on their own -- then there is usually no comma between them (unless that comma is used to block off some other modifier that is not part of the parallel structure).

Dear Ron,
I am confused with usage of ,and and and, .
My understanding is ,and can act as conjunction for connecting two independent clause (or) for connecting list.

Same question - Minivans carry as many as seven passengers, and compared with sport utility vehicle, most ... in non underline portion was tested in GMAT prep. What is the role of ,and in this.

One more doubt. Mira is as likely as sam to win promotion - Here Mira and Sam are compared. Similarly, what is compared in the above sentence with usage of AS many AS.

[RonPurewal]

I am confused with usage of ,and and and, .
My understanding is ,and can act as conjunction for connecting two independent clause (or) for connecting list.

Same question - Minivans carry as many as seven passengers, and compared with sport utility vehicle, most ... in non underline portion was tested in GMAT prep. What is the role of ,and in this.

^^ the presence/absence of punctuation is not tested on this exam.

[RonPurewal]

One more doubt. Mira is as likely as sam to win promotion - Here Mira and Sam are compared. Similarly, what is compared in the above sentence with usage of AS many AS.

"as many as [NUMBER]" is a standard construction with which you should be familiar. basically, that's how you express the "≤" inequality in words.
(more importantly, this is beside the point here -- it's a non-issue. the same construction is in all five choices, so, this has nothing to do with solving the problem.)

**IF** this is actually tested on the exam someday, then you'll probably see a split between "as many as..." and "as much as..."
in this case you still wouldn't need to think about the nuances of the construction itself; you would just need to think about whether you were talking about something countable ("many") or uncountable ("much").

if you ever find a problem in which this construction IS ACTUALLY TESTED in another way, feel free to bring it to our attention.

[RishavR393]

my first complaint about (d) is that it's noticeably awkward, but you'd have to be a native speaker of english to pick up on that.

however, there's a problem of semantics (meaning) with (d). the modifier "...carrying..." seems to signify that the latter traits are only true of minivans when those minivans are actually carrying the requisite number of passengers. if they aren't, then all of a sudden those things aren't true anymore.

choice (a) correctly uses the conjunction "and", which implies that both things are true but don't necessarily have to do with each other (i.e., the # of passengers is independent of the other claims).

Hi Ron,
I have a basic query though. In A we have the structure like this: Minivans carry... and compared...
carry seems to be a verb while compared is not. Are they parallel ? How we can identify such structures?