According to recent studies comparing the nutritional value

[Samy]

Q24: According to recent studies comparing the nutritional value of meat from wild animals
and meat from domesticated animals, wild animals have less total fat than do livestock
fed on grain and more of a kind of fat they think is good for cardiac health.

A. wild animals have less total fat than do livestock fed on grain and more of a kind
of fat they think is
B. wild animals have less total fat than livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of
fat thought to be
C. wild animals have less total fat than that of livestock fed on grain and have more
fat of a kind thought to be
D. total fat of wild animals is less than livestock fed on grain and they have more fat
of a kind thought to be
E. total fat is less in wild animals than that of livestock fed on grain and more of
their fat is of a kind they think is

Between B and C, what is your pick ?
Is the comparison in C correct ?
Thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

B. It correctly compares wild animals to livestock fed on grain and constructs the "less X and more Y" idiom correctly.

C compares wild animals to "that of" livestock... what is "that of" referring to? It also says "have less X and have more Y" - we don't need the second have. The first have can apply to both parts of the idiom.

[Samy]

Yes B is correct.
I over analyzed and marked C.
Thanks

[mclaren7]

Hi

Would like to clarify Q24:
According to recent studies comparing the nutritional value of meat from wild animals and meat from domesticated animals, wild animals have less total fat than do livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of fat they think is good for cardiac health.

B. wild animals have less total fat than livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of fat thought to be
C. wild animals have less total fat than that of livestock fed on grain and have more fat of a kind thought to be

Stacey mentioned Option C is incorrect because:
"C compares wild animals to "that of" livestock... what is "that of" referring to? It also says "have less X and have more Y" - we don't need the second have. The first have can apply to both parts of the idiom."

--> My understanding is that when we compare items, we should say "Protein in rice is of higher quality than that in wheat". Thus would like to check why is "that of" in option C wrong?

Thank you for your help.
KH

[RonPurewal]

--> My understanding is that when we compare items, we should say "Protein in rice is of higher quality than that in wheat". Thus would like to check why is "that of" in option C wrong?

Thank you for your help.
KH

when you see a comparison, you need to boil the comparison down to the SINGLE NOUNS/PRONOUNS that are compared. this means, inter alia, that you have to dispense with modifiers, prepositional phrases, and the like - the same irrelevant constructions that go out the window when you consider other types of agreement (like subject-verb agreement).

in the example you've cited, the comparison is between PROTEIN ('in rice' is a modifying prepositional phrase, so it gets chucked) and THAT (which of course refers to protein), and is therefore proper.

in q24 choice c, the comparison is between ANIMALS and THAT (which in this case stands for FAT). you can't consider livestock to be the second half of the comparison, because it's part of a prepositional phrase (which is a modifier and therefore can't be part of the comparison).

[Pathik]

B. wild animals have less total fat than livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of
fat thought to be

Isn't B incorretly saying
wild animals have less fat than wild animals have livestock
I thought for proper comaprision we need verb in the second part of comparision something like - wild animals have less total fat than do livestock.

[RonPurewal]

B. wild animals have less total fat than livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of
fat thought to be

Isn't B incorretly saying
wild animals have less fat than wild animals have livestock
I thought for proper comaprision we need verb in the second part of comparision something like - wild animals have less total fat than do livestock.

you've learned a lesson here: the gmat's preference for that 'do' is not absolute.

from a 100% strict semantic viewpoint, i agree with you here: there's technically an ambiguity. however, we now have evidence, in the form of this problem, that the gmat doesn't consider ALL of these 'ambiguities' as truly ambiguous. rather, provided that the 'second meaning' is sufficiently absurd AND nonparallel (note the obvious logical nonparallelism of compairing total fat to livestock), it's ok to eliminate the 'do'.

sigh.

remember, we don't make the rules; they do. but with each problem like this one that you study, you'll have a better idea of exactly what their rules are.

[hphuong]

Please help clear :

B compare : wild animals have less X and more Y than livestock fed on grain?

Thanks

[esledge]

Please help clear :

B compare : wild animals have less X and more Y than livestock fed on grain?

Thanks

Yes, that's what (B) is saying.

Here's B in the context of the sentence, just so people won't have to scroll up and down:
(B) According to recent studies comparing the nutritional value of meat from wild animals
and meat from domesticated animals, wild animals have less total fat than livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of fat thought to be good for cardiac health.

Simplifying, we can read this as: "comparing meat from wild animals and from domesticated animals, wild animals have less X than livestock and more Y (than livestock)."

It's an unusual word order; typically we would see "livestock" after a "more than" or "less than." Since the comparisons are parallel (due to "and"), "that livestock" is understood to apply to both of them.

[rx_11]

Hi, instructors,

Why can't we interpret the choice C as comparing the "fat" of the two animals, rather than the two animals?

Choice C: " Wild animals have less total fat than that of livestock "

[jnelson0612]

rx_11, go back and read Ron's post. He addresses answer choice C.

[rx_11]

Hi, instructors

Thanks very much for your reply. But maybe I did not make my question clear.

My question is why the comparison is incorrect in this sentense.

"Wild animals have less total fat than the total fat of livestock"

Ron has explained that this comparison is wrong because we cannot compare "Wild animals" & " livestock" when "livestock" are in a prepostion in the second part. But I think we can compare "the total fat" of the two animals as the underlined part shows.

According to this example, I find that if a sentense is following the Subject+Verb+Object structure, then the sentense is always used to compare the subject, not the object. Is that true??

Moreover, I find this rule seems to be able to apply to all comparisons and I could not find out any exceptions. Experts please confirm it. Thanks very much!

Best regards.

rx.

[tim]

rx, answer choice C says that wild animals have less of one thing than they do of another. It also makes clear that these things are "total fat" and "total fat of livestock". Let’s say you could measure how much "total fat" wild animals have. You’d still find it rather difficult to measure how much "total fat of livestock" wild animals have - although I’d guess it’s zero.. :)

As to your other question, there is no such general rule..

[AlohaDJ]

--> My understanding is that when we compare items, we should say "Protein in rice is of higher quality than that in wheat". Thus would like to check why is "that of" in option C wrong?

Thank you for your help.
KH

when you see a comparison, you need to boil the comparison down to the SINGLE NOUNS/PRONOUNS that are compared. this means, inter alia, that you have to dispense with modifiers, prepositional phrases, and the like - the same irrelevant constructions that go out the window when you consider other types of agreement (like subject-verb agreement).

in the example you've cited, the comparison is between PROTEIN ('in rice' is a modifying prepositional phrase, so it gets chucked) and THAT (which of course refers to protein), and is therefore proper.

in q24 choice c, the comparison is between ANIMALS and THAT (which in this case stands for FAT). you can't consider livestock to be the second half of the comparison, because it's part of a prepositional phrase (which is a modifier and therefore can't be part of the comparison).

Many thanks for your always excellent explanations, Ron~!

[RonPurewal]

thanks.

this problem is most likely not from GMAT PREP (the sole subject of this folder), so the thread is now locked.