A recent United States Census Bureau report shows that there

[RonPurewal]

Can someone explain what is incorrect about C?
C) as those whose

A report shows that there are more than three times as many X and as Y
X = Households where...
Y = [Those = households] whose.....

you've actually pointed out the error yourself!

remember that you have to read extremely literally.

if you read this choice extremely literally, it says that households have grandparents (i.e., the households THEMSELVES - not the people in them - have grandparents).
this is absurd.

--

note that you must ALWAYS read with an extremely literal bent.
this will preclude many expressions that are commonplace in spoken language. for instance, it's incorrect to write that "an author was published twice in the last year", because authors themselves are not published. (you would have to say that the author's work was published twice in the last year.)

[thanghnvn]

I have an idea an wish Ron, Manhantan Experts, and members to comment.

Questioning the OA.

In the past, I sometimes made mistake, questioning the OA.

Why do I do so?

we have tendency to look for error in a choice without comaring the choice with another choice.

gmat test us not only ABSOLUTE ERROR, but also, RELATIVE ERROR.

the words I devise.

absolute error is basic grammar errors. "he am" is wrong, absolute error.

relative errors are errors which appear when 2 choices are compared . For example.

"to do" is right when compared with "for doing" in another choice.

but

"for doing" can be in OA in another SC problem. Ron used to said this thing. "for doing" appear in OA in paralell forms.

The main point is that we look for both 2 types of error and the OA is not absolutely correct. the OA is best.

I get into habit of looking error from comparion and reading the entire original sentence before comparing choices. I feel better. /

This way of thinking is good for SC.

Is my thinking correct?

[RonPurewal]

Is my thinking correct?

hi --
there are a lot of thoughts in that post; i can't tell exactly what your question is.
could you please state your question in a single sentence?

thanks.

[manhhiep2509]

A recent United States Census Bureau report shows that there are more than three times as many households where the children and grandchildren are living in their grandparents' home as compared to households where the grandparents are living in their children's or grandchildren's
home.
(A) as compared to households where the
(B) as there are households where the
(C) as those whose
(D) than compared to those where the
(E) than there are whose

Hi Ron.

Is "there are" in choice B is necessary?
Without "there are" I think that the sentence would indicate a comparison between how many first type of households are and the other type of households. it would be an illogical comparison.

[RonPurewal]

The second "there are..." isn't strictly necessary. Without it, you'd have a sentence with the same structure as "In most countries, there are as many men as women."

Its primary value lies in making the sentence easier to read.
This is not an issue of right and wrong"”it's a style issue"”and so it will never be dispositive in a real problem. Still, you should know it's a thing.
Try writing out the entire sentence without the second "there are". See whether it's easy to read.
Now try the same with the second "there are".
The difference won't be as great as it would be to a random reader"”since you'll already be familiar with the sentence, and so less easily confused by it"”but it will still be evident.

The same principle is at work behind the inclusion of many other technically unnecessary things, e.g., the use of Just as xxxxx, so yyyy rather than just "Just as xxxxx, yyyy".

[sarangp361]

Wanted to know as to why Option C is wrong. I thought "where" modifies real physical locations.?

TIA

[RonPurewal]

I thought "where" modifies real physical locations.?

the sentence is about who is physically living with whom, in the same physical household.

[RonPurewal]

MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY,
this sentence very clearly tests parallelism, and the other half of the parallelism—which is not underlined, and therefore must represent correct usage—contains exactly the same usage of "where".

in other words, since the same usage of "where" is ok in the first half of the sentence... it's also ok in the second half.

[Carina0612]

The second "there are..." isn't strictly necessary. Without it, you'd have a sentence with the same structure as "In most countries, there are as many men as women."

Its primary value lies in making the sentence easier to read.
This is not an issue of right and wrong"”it's a style issue"”and so it will never be dispositive in a real problem. Still, you should know it's a thing.
Try writing out the entire sentence without the second "there are". See whether it's easy to read.
Now try the same with the second "there are".
The difference won't be as great as it would be to a random reader"”since you'll already be familiar with the sentence, and so less easily confused by it"”but it will still be evident.

The same principle is at work behind the inclusion of many other technically unnecessary things, e.g., the use of Just as xxxxx, so yyyy rather than just "Just as xxxxx, yyyy".

Dear Ron,
I am a non-native speaker from China.
I find “there are” quite awkward in choice B (maybe it's not so awkward for you native speakers), so I chose A.
I don't quite understand what you explained above, could you please be more specific by using some examples?

Thanks a lot!
Carina0612

[RonPurewal]

if you did not grow up with the english language, then you will definitely not have a reliable sense of what is "awkward" in written english.
so, there's no point in thinking about that -- you'll just be guessing.

__

you can eliminate A because of "compared to", which can NEVER be used together with another comparison word (more, less, twice, half, three times...).

the correct use of "compared to" is just to put two values next to each other and let the reader draw any necessary inferences (which should be obvious enough), as shown here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... tml#p56655

[qingpingy757]

Hello. I have a question about "those". Is the "those" in C right?

[cgentry]

The "those" in C is incorrect, mainly because it's "those whose". The comparison idiom is "as many _____ as ______". In this sentence with choice C, the comparison becomes "as many households where ... as those (households) whose grandparents..."

The word "those" is a pronoun, and needs an antecedent. The structure of this comparison dictates that the antecedent for "those" be "households"... and then you follow that pronoun with the possessive "whose".

So, do the households have grandparents?

Or is the sentence merely comparing households where the living arrangements are different?

If you say "households whose", the households have grandparents. If you say "households where", then the households are merely the place in which the living arrangements exist.

Hope this helps!