SC Guide Chapter 8 Q 14

[chughbrajesh]

14. Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employees, because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company.

I was thinking that sentence can be made better by saying-
Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employees, because he works the hardest and most creatively than anyone else in the company.

Please help me with what I said wrong here.
Thank you

[StaceyKoprince]

Please remember to read (and follow!) the forum guidelines before posting.

This folder is only for general strategy questions, not content or specific test problems. Check out the content / problem folders and post in the relevant folder depending upon the source of the problem you want to post (and make sure to follow the rules about banned sources). If you are a course student, you can also ask about other problems or issues before or after class or during section.

The question you are asking about should go in the Manhattan GMAT Non-CAT verbal folder. I'll give you a short answer here, but if you want to discuss further, you'll need to post in the correct folder. :)

"anyone else" is singular, so you are technically comparing Hugo to one other person (each time, it's just Hugo and one other employee, even though you might do this 100 times to compare Hugo to each other employee). When comparing two people, use a comparative, not a superlative (harder, not hardest, for example).

If you want to change the sentence so that you can use a superlative, you could say something like:
Huge is widely acknowledged to be our best employee because, of all of the employees, he works the hardest and is the most creative.

Note that this time, you're comparing Hugo to many people all at once, not just one - so you use the superlative form.