couples' retirement transitions

[tankobe]

A study on couples' retirement transitions found that, different from men who took new jobs after retiring from their primary careers, women who did so were more likely than those who retired completely to report high marital satisfaction.

(A) different from
(B) unlike with
(C) unlike
(D) unlike the results for
(E) compared to the results for

Source:preptest2 OA is C
what's wrong with A?

Stephen

[RonPurewal]

A study on couples' retirement transitions found that, different from men who took new jobs after retiring from their primary careers, women who did so were more likely than those who retired completely to report high marital satisfaction.

(A) different from
(B) unlike with
(C) unlike
(D) unlike the results for
(E) compared to the results for

Source:preptest2 OA is C
what's wrong with A?

Stephen

if you say "different from ...", the literal meaning is that the women themselves are different from the men themselves.

the intended meaning of the sentence is not that the women and men themselves are different, but, rather, that their experiences of marital satisfaction are different.
"unlike" allows this sort of comparison; "different from" doesn't.

i.e.
if you say "different from X, Y...", then this means that X and Y themselves are different.
if you say "unlike X, Y does Z", this means that Y does Z, but X doesn't do Z.

[tankobe]

A study on couples' retirement transitions found that, different from men who took new jobs after retiring from their primary careers, women who did so were more likely than those who retired completely to report high marital satisfaction.

(A) different from
(B) unlike with
(C) unlike
(D) unlike the results for
(E) compared to the results for

Source:preptest2 OA is C
what's wrong with A?

Stephen

if you say "different from ...", the literal meaning is that the women themselves are different from the men themselves.

the intended meaning of the sentence is not that the women and men themselves are different, but, rather, that their experiences of marital satisfaction are different.
"unlike" allows this sort of comparison; "different from" doesn't.

i.e.
if you say "different from X, Y...", then this means that X and Y themselves are different.
if you say "unlike X, Y does Z", this means that Y does Z, but X doesn't do Z.

thank you, Ron. great explanation!

[tuftsv]

Hi Ron,

I am not clear about the intended "comparion" in this sentence.
As it shows that "unlike men..., women...." at first glance, i will assume it intends to compare "men" vs " women" to +v; however, later sentence shows that it seems to compare women in different groups(that is, women who took new jobs vs women who retire completely)
so just getting a littele confused about what it intends to compare.

can you pls explain for this? thanks.

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

I am not clear about the intended "comparion" in this sentence.
As it shows that "unlike men..., women...." at first glance, i will assume it intends to compare "men" vs " women" to +v; however, later sentence shows that it seems to compare women in different groups(that is, women who took new jobs vs women who retire completely)
so just getting a littele confused about what it intends to compare.

can you pls explain for this? thanks.

ironically, this is one of those problems on which it's not even that important to ascertain the exact meaning, since there is only one choice that is logically, grammatically, and idiomatically correct.
* (a) is unidiomatic -- "different from" cannot be used in this sort of comparison.
* (b) is ungrammatical, since there is no "with" to create a parallel structure on the other side of the sentence.
* (d) and (e) are illogical because they compare results to people.

--

what the sentence is saying is that retired married women who took new jobs were happier than retired married women who did not take such jobs, while the reverse is true for retired married men.