Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months

[RonPurewal]

terminology is a waste of your time; there's no reason to know it. (personally, i'm incapable of retaining these terms; if i mentioned one of them in another thread, i almost certainly just finished googling it.)

do you understand how the sentence works?
can you make your own examples with similar structures?
these are the only two things that matter. as long as both answers are "yes", you've learned 100% of what you need to learn here.

[AllenY389]

terminology is a waste of your time; there's no reason to know it. (personally, i'm incapable of retaining these terms; if i mentioned one of them in another thread, i almost certainly just finished googling it.)

do you understand how the sentence works?
can you make your own examples with similar structures?
these are the only two things that matter. as long as both answers are "yes", you've learned 100% of what you need to learn here.

hi，ron，in other words，it doesn't matter what "more than" and "less than" are adverb or appositive，but matters that "less than" and "more than" should modify the action in the preceding clause? Am I right?

[RonPurewal]

that's the essence, yes.

[WenjiaY669]

Hi Ron,

Sorry to bump this old thread again.
I am so confused now.

What does the term "they" refer to? If "they" refers to employment costs, then this usage seems to violate one point in the SC book.

"When you use it, they, or other personal pronouns, you mean the same actual thing as the antecedent"

The employment costs are not the same at different time obviously. That's why I rule out abce quickly.

Could you please explain this to me?

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

the point is that "they" = same noun + same modifiers.
if, upon substituting the same noun + modifiers for "they", you have a sensible (if awkward) sentence, then "they" is fine.

Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in September, slightly less than employment costs rose in the year that ended in the previous quarter.

(i also replaced "did" with "rose")

this sentence still makes perfect sense, so "they" is fine.

[RonPurewal]

also, you need to understand that "employment costs" are an entity that evolves with time.
so, "they weren't exactly the same back then" is a non-argument.

here's an analogy:
Tyler is more physically fit than he was 10 years ago.
hopefully it's obvious that this sentence is ok.

tyler is probably, in many ways, a different person now than he was 10 years ago——but that's not an objection to the use of "he", since Tyler is still Tyler.

[sdfsdfsdfs481]

I don't understand why there is a comma in front of less than.

Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in September, slightly less than they did in the year that ended in the previous quarter.

Does slightly less than they did in the year that ended in the previous quarter act as an adverbial phase to modify the previous part "Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in September"?

I find other OA sentence has a similar structure. There is a comma placed in front of more than.
A study on couples' retirement transitions found that women who took new jobs after retiring from their primary careers reported high marital satisfaction, more so than those who retired completely.

I guess they are structures used to modify the previous part (indicate/make comparison with the extent of previous action) . So we should choose an answer parallel to the previous part. I want to know whether my thought is correct.

[CrystalSpringston]

"Ellipsis" (or 'omitting words') is not a good way to think about constructing comparison sentences.

I.e., "ellipsis" suggests that you're starting with some theoretical longer sentence and then "omitting" words from it.
The problem is that, in the vast majority of comparison sentences, that simply isn't what happens.

E.g., In New York, more people walk than drive to work.
This is NOT "ellipsis". There is absolutely NO WAY to write this sentence with more words, unless we fundamentally re-structure the entire thing (for instance, adding "there are" in front of the comparison).

Most comparison sentences do NOT 'omit' anything.

Fortunately, the reality is easier.
Just find what's being compared, and see whether the comparison works.
If you have a comparison signal word (like "less than" or "lower than" here), then whatever follows that word MUST be part of the comparison. Then figure out what the other half of the comparison should look like (to maintain parallelism).

Hi Ron, I think it is not worth time to figure out all the minor differences between less and lower. We can make judgement on the comparison part to rule out the incorrect options, in this case.
The "comparison policy"(you wrote above) is useful to recognize the options quickly. But I still made a mistake . I thought that
the comparison part in this sentence should be "in the year that ended in the previous quarter" that was correspondent to the prior part of "in the 12 months that ended in September". They are perfect parallelism, aren't they? So I chose "lower than" ( no "less than" here) . Pls help me with the error where I misunderstood. Thank you!

[RonPurewal]

if choice D said 'less' it would be fine. the only problem with that choice is that 'lower' cannot modify actions.

[CrystalSpringston]

if choice D said 'less' it would be fine. the only problem with that choice is that 'lower' cannot modify actions.

So, I have to choose between less and lower whatever.
Thank you Ron. You comments are very helpful.

[sdfsdfsdfs481]

I don't understand why there is a comma in front of less than.

Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in September, slightly less than they did in the year that ended in the previous quarter.

Does slightly less than they did in the year that ended in the previous quarter act as an adverbial phase to modify the previous part "Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in September"?

I find other OA sentence has a similar structure. There is a comma placed in front of more than.
A study on couples' retirement transitions found that women who took new jobs after retiring from their primary careers reported high marital satisfaction, more so than those who retired completely.

I guess they are structures used to modify the previous part (indicate/make comparison with the extent of previous action) . So we should choose an answer parallel to the previous part. I want to know whether my thought is correct.

[Chelsey Cooley]

In both of your cases, the 'thing after the comma' modifies the main subject and verb of the independent clause preceding it. This is commonly the case for modifiers at the end of a sentence that are separated by a comma. 'slightly less' describes how much the costs (subject) rose (verb); 'more so than' describes how the women (subject) report (verb). Here's what you'd want to look out for:

The child hit his brother over the head, less than eight years old.

'less than eight years old' is apparently trying to modify either 'child' or 'brother'. Grammatically, it isn't close enough to do that. It also can't modify 'child hit', because logically it doesn't describe how/why/etc. the child hit his brother. So, unlike your examples, it's no good. Here's a good sentence:

The child hit his brother over the head, less violently than he did last year.

[sdfsdfsdfs481]

In both of your cases, the 'thing after the comma' modifies the main subject and verb of the independent clause preceding it. This is commonly the case for modifiers at the end of a sentence that are separated by a comma. 'slightly less' describes how much the costs (subject) rose (verb); 'more so than' describes how the women (subject) report (verb). Here's what you'd want to look out for:

The child hit his brother over the head, less than eight years old.

'less than eight years old' is apparently trying to modify either 'child' or 'brother'. Grammatically, it isn't close enough to do that. It also can't modify 'child hit', because logically it doesn't describe how/why/etc. the child hit his brother. So, unlike your examples, it's no good. Here's a good sentence:

The child hit his brother over the head, less violently than he did last year.

Thank you, Chelsey!
Your explanation is useful and easy to understand!

[tim]

[aflaamM589]

Hello Ron,
Please help me in understanding the tense issue here.
Can did be replaced with had been in choice A?

I know that we should not try to alter the official answers but it will go a long way in helping me understand the tense, achilles heels for non natives.

Moreover, is ,less than used here as appositive?
I read in one of your post that twice / double can be used as appositives. Can less than or fewer than be similarly used as appositive , as is the case in A?

Thanks in advance