A study on couples' retirement transitions found that

[RonPurewal]

I thought to compare the numbers of two different groups of women...

it should be clear that this ^^ is not a correct interpretation. just think about the words that are there.

if the sentence were simply intended to compare the sizes of 2 different groups of women, then, "marital satisfaction" would be completely irrelevant, and there would be no reason to mention it.

ALL of the words are THERE FOR A REASON!

[Crisc419]

I thought to compare the numbers of two different groups of women...

it should be clear that this ^^ is not a correct interpretation. just think about the words that are there.

if the sentence were simply intended to compare the sizes of 2 different groups of women, then, "marital satisfaction" would be completely irrelevant, and there would be no reason to mention it.

ALL of the words are THERE FOR A REASON!

first, i mean if there is no "so" in the sentence, i am not sure what "more than" is modifying ,

1/modifying "women": means that one group of women who reported high martial satisfaction is more than the other group of women who reported high marital satisfaction.
2/modifying "reported...": means that one group of women reported hign marital satisfaction more often than the other group of women did.

which one, and why? could you elaborate on this?

second, there is a "so" in the sentence("more so than those who retired completely" ), then i could figure out that the sentence should mean that "..../report more than.... ", because "so" refers the verb "report".

thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

at this point, it really just comes down to using basic common sense.

remember—when you first read these sentences, FORGET THAT YOU'RE TAKING A TEST, and just READ THEM THE WAY YOU READ NORMAL THINGS (like a book, or a magazine, or a website).

if you FORGET THAT YOU'RE TAKING A TEST and just look at these words as though you'd seen them in a newspaper, you will definitely know EXACTLY what the sentence is trying to tell you.