can somebody help me out with this question?

[gmat.acer]

I have 2 questions about choice (D)

Q1: Is (D) wrong because it compares number with people?
- movies, a number lower than the people

Q2: Are following modified versions of (D) grammatically correct? (even though awefully lengthy)
(A) ...movies, a number lower than a number of people killed by bee stings
(B) ...movies, a number lower than a number of people that have been killed by bee stings

[RonPurewal]

Q1: Is (D) wrong because it compares number with people?
- movies, a number lower than the people

yep. a number can't be lower than people.

Q2: Are following modified versions of (D) grammatically correct? (even though awefully lengthy)
(A) ...movies, a number lower than a number of people killed by bee stings
(B) ...movies, a number lower than a number of people that have been killed by bee stings

first, the obligatory warning --
don't try to fix sentences!
even though this section of the test is called, ironically, "sentence correction", you do not need to be able to fix the sentences; you only need to be able to select the correct answer choice from the choices given.
trying to fix the sentences is an irrelevant skill set; if you do too much of this, it will distract you from the skill set that you actually need.

--

these sentences are actually a perfect illustration of why you shouldn't try to alter the answer choices yourself: they contain errors, but those errors aren't tested on the gmat.
first, "a number" is wrong; it should be "the number". however, the exam doesn't test a/an/the, so that topic is not worth discussing here.
second, in your (b) you used a "that" modifier to describe people. this is not ok; you have to use "who" instead.
finally, although your examples are not technically incorrect other than in the ways mentioned above, you aren't going to see sentences written like them. (the whole point of more compact constructions in comparative sentences is to eliminate awkward repetitions such as "number ... number" in the examples you've provided here.)

[adarsh.murthy]

Hi Ron,

sorry if this has been already discussed. I am wondering if my understanding is right:

- fewer than (..the number of people who..) have been killed by bee stings.

My understanding is that the part in the bracket (the number of people who) has been left out as it is understood. Is my understanding right?

Thanks!

[jnelson0612]

Hi Ron,

sorry if this has been already discussed. I am wondering if my understanding is right:

- fewer than (..the number of people who..) have been killed by bee stings.

My understanding is that the part in the bracket (the number of people who) has been left out as it is understood. Is my understanding right?

Thanks!

Your understanding is indeed right! :-)

[aps_asks]

Hi Ron ,

Can u please tell the reasons due to which choice E) is an inferior choice for this Question ?

[parthian7]

1. can I say?
guys
on the bb team
are taller than
on the soccer team.

no.
if you have a comparison between two different nouns (or pronouns), then both of them should appear explicitly.
since this sentence is a comparison between "guys..." and other guys, you have to have a noun/pronoun to represent the other guys.
e.g.
the guys on the basketball team are taller than those on the soccer team

If not please explain why?

2. How about?
Three guys on the bb team are very tall, fewer than are on the soccer team.

the meaning of this sentence would be the following:
* there are three very tall guys on the basketball team
* more than three of the guys on the basketball team are also on the soccer team
that's the only proper interpretation of this wording, because the second half of the comparison is a verb ("... are on the soccer team"). that verb would have to be in parallel to the other verb, which is "are very tall" -- creating a comparison between (a) basketball players who are really tall and (b) basketball players who are on the soccer team.

this is probably not the meaning that you intend here, so this wording is incorrect.

[RonPurewal]

sorry, looks like i accidentally hit "edit" instead of "reply" to that last post, so my words appear interwoven with the other poster's.

[zhongshanlh]

Hi Ron,

sorry if this has been already discussed. I am wondering if my understanding is right:

- fewer than (..the number of people who..) have been killed by bee stings.

My understanding is that the part in the bracket (the number of people who) has been left out as it is understood. Is my understanding right?

Thanks!

Your understanding is indeed right! :-)

i am sorry that but just in this thread, Ron said that we could not probably regard this sentence as some kind of omission.
here is what he said"i don't think that this can be regarded as an ellipsis/omission, since "fewer than ..." isn't a clause.
instead, like other comparisons, it's just a parallel structure:
have been killed by the shark
is parallel to
have been killed by bee stings.
"
so i am confused about the issue,please clarify my though, thanks!

[RonPurewal]

ya, it's just a parallel structure. it's not an "omission".

at the end of the day, the distinction isn't terribly important -- in this particular case, at least -- because the more X than Y construction is workable with just about any grammatical forms for "x" and "y".
they can be...
nouns (i have more apples than bananas)
verbs (more people swim than run)
infinitives (i like to swim better than to run)
verb phrases (like the sentence in this thread)
entire clauses (birds like to sing more than penguins like to dance)
... and just about anything else under the sun. so, who cares, really, as long as you can find properly parallel structures.

if this construction followed stricter rules (= had to be used for extremely particular types of grammatical elements), then this sort of thing would become important.

[keithyang926]

first, i'm about 99% sure that we are not allowed to use "ones" to refer to people.

Hi Ron,
My friends and I are very confused about your statement above, because from what we have gathered, 'ones' can perfectly refer to people, as in the following examples.

We are the only ones who know.
The people dressed in blue are nicer than the ones dressed in green.
The people killed by the Great White Shark are fewer than the ones killed by bees.

Can you confirm my examples above, and could you please explain how you concluded that general statement about 'ones'?

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

keith

first, i'm about 99% sure that we are not allowed to use "ones" to refer to people.

Hi Ron,
My friends and I are very confused about your statement above, because from what we have gathered, 'ones' can perfectly refer to people, as in the following examples.

We are the only ones who know.
The people dressed in blue are nicer than the ones dressed in green.

these two examples are clearly not taken from GMAC's official problems (or from any kind of formal english, for that matter), and so are irrelevant.

The people killed by the Great White Shark are fewer than the ones killed by bees.

this example comes from one of gmac's incorrect answers. since it was formulated as an incorrect answer, it can't be used as a precedent for anything.

[zhongshanlh]

good call. i know the problem to which you're making an analogy here (it's the bihar problem from OG).

i guess "that of" has a little more leeway in the exact parallelism department.
i.e. you can put "that OF" or "those OF" in parallel to anything that suggests a possessive structure. or at least that's what we learn from this problem...

in any case, you can't use "IN any other...", because there's nothing to which the preposition IN can be parallel.

Ron, i am still a little confused about the use of that/those, i think the use of these two words could be a little more flexible.
i reached that conclusion because i remember a question in OG 12, the correct sentence reads:
more babies were born to women under the age of 30 than under it.

in that thread, i asked about the use of those and made up a sentence :
more babies were born to women under the age of 30 than those born to women under it.
i think the sentence i made makes sense and the use of those is correct, and Tim confirm my thought.
however, if the sentence i made is really a correct one, then it seems that the use of those could be a little more flexible because no phrases in the first part of the comparison could be perfectly parallel with "those born to women under it".

so please clarify my idea if i made any mistake and thank you very much!

[zhongshanlh]

PS. the question related in my previous post is actually a prep question, and here comes the lind:
prepsc-babies-were-born-to-women-t6943-15.html

[jlucero]

If I understand your question correctly, you're trying to say that "those of" can be used in your example. But this fits in with what Ron stated previously: use that/those when the parallelism between elements is comparable between clauses:

More babies were born to women under the age of 30 than those born to women under it.

More babies were born X than those born Y.

1) This is mostly comparable and I would not eliminate it as a possible answer choice if it were on the real test. That said...

2) This isn't from a real test; it's your example that you came up with so don't treat it as though it would be the same way the GMAT would write it. The GMAT doesn't have this as an option on the Prep test b/c while it sounds "mostly right", you could argue that your use of those is (as the GMAT would state it) wordy and awkward. It does sound better the way the GMAT phrased it w/o a second subject.

Takeaway: learn the black and white grammar issues that actually show up on the GMAT rather than trying to push into the grey area and see if you've crossed the line.

[visitdhiraj]

Hi Ron

Could you please tell me when do we use the pronoun "ones" as used in the choice.

I am clueless

Is the "ones" in option e correct?

Could u share a few examples in which we can use ones

Thanks, Dhiraj