GMAT Questions - Soaring television costs accounted for more

[thanghnvn]

Soaring television costs accounted for more than half the spending in the presidential campaign of 1992, a greater proportion than it was in any previous election.

A. a greater proportion than it was
B. a greater proportion than
C. a greater proportion than they have been
D. which is greater than was so
E. which is greater than it has been

GMAT Prep Question

D&E are obviously wrong.
I am very confused among A,B and C. What does it refer to in A, and what does they refer to in C? Can we use have been in C? Please help, thanks!

grammatically, "it" in A and E refers to "proportion" and "which" . this reference is grammatical
but this reference is not logic. "it" refers to the same thing mentioned previous so, we can compare a thing with itself. NO LOGICNESS.

"it" dose have a noun to refer to. the problem is the reference is not logic. the problem is not that "it" has no noun to refer to.

do you agree with me?

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

After POE, I left with options A and B.
I eliminated A because it has full clause "it was in any previous election",

and I was aware that this question is testing "Comparison" concept so ellipses would play big role in option B.

i don't know what "ellipses" means, so, if that's an integral part of your question, you'll have to rephrase that part. thanks.

"If you can't explain something without jargon, then you don't understand it."
-- Richard Zare, Nobel laureate in chemistry

[RonPurewal]

Could you please explain whether later part of option A creates run-on sentence?

not necessarily; plenty of valid comparison sentences have similar strucures.
e.g.,
The weather is definitely hotter this year than it was last year.

[RonPurewal]

"it" dose have a noun to refer to. the problem is the reference is not logic. the problem is not that "it" has no noun to refer to.

do you agree with me?

this pronoun issue is already covered in the thread; please read through the thread in its entirety.
thanks.

[chetan86]

Hi Ron,

After POE, I left with options A and B.
I eliminated A because it has full clause "it was in any previous election",

and I was aware that this question is testing "Comparison" concept so ellipses would play big role in option B.

i don't know what "ellipses" means, so, if that's an integral part of your question, you'll have to rephrase that part. thanks.

"If you can't explain something without jargon, then you don't understand it."
-- Richard Zare, Nobel laureate in chemistry

Hi Ron,

Sorry, its my mistake. The spelling should be "ellipsis".

Below is the post you wrote on Thu Jul 30, 2009 for current thread. I meant to say the same thing :)
Thanks for the quote :)

there's ellipsis here. the understood comparison is a repeated instance of "proportion".
in contexts in which you would repeat a noun, you don't have to include the repeated noun; you may merely imply it. this is known as ellipsis.

for instance:
this year's heavyweight champion is shorter than last year's.
here, the second half of the comparison is clearly "last year's heavyweight champion", but you don't have to say "heavyweight champion" again.

[chetan86]

Could you please explain whether later part of option A creates run-on sentence?

not necessarily; plenty of valid comparison sentences have similar strucures.
e.g.,
The weather is definitely hotter this year than it was last year.

Hi Ron,

Thanks a lot for clarifying my doubt.

Thanks!!

[RonPurewal]

sure.

[melodyc660]

I have read every post in this thread, and understood why ACDE are wrong. I still have a question about C though, since Ron explained that the 'they have been' part is not parallel with 'accounted for', I was wondering whether 'they have' or 'they did' would make this option acceptable.

Also, I guess the proportion is pointing to 'half the spending', if it's not talking about soaring costs at all then anything that starts with 'they' would be wrong anyway.

Sorry my point is that to rule out this option because of 'have been' is pretty strange ...

[RonPurewal]

whether 'they have' or 'they did' would make this option acceptable

no, because "have"/"did" can't stand for "accounted for".

[DiZ806]

Why can not the sentence have exactly the same noun on both sides of the comparison? Could you give me more explanations and examples please?

A comparison has to compare two different things. A comparison of something with itself wouldn't make any sense.

E.g.,
The weather in Fresno is nicer than that in Chicago.
This works. "That" is just "weather" (not weather in Miami). We're comparing the weather in two different places.

The weather in Fresno is hotter than it is in Chicago.
Incorrect.
"It", unlike "that" has to be the SAME noun (with all attached qualifiers) -- i.e., the weather in Fresno. So this sentence is talking, absurdly enough, about "the weather in Fresno ... in Chicago".

--

You could have the same noun on both sides of the comparison, as long as SOMETHING is different. Different timeframes, different situations, etc.

E.g.,
The weather in Fresno is hotter now than it was forty years ago.

Here, the noun ("it" = "the weather in Fresno") is exactly the same on both sides. This time the timeframes, not the nouns, are different things.

If I say
The weather in Fresno is hotter than in Chicago.
Right?
Or I should say
The weather in Fresno is hotter than that in Chicago.
Which one is right?
Why

[RonPurewal]

The weather in Fresno is hotter than in Chicago.

this sentence doesn't work.
it's constructed as "the weather ... is ... hotter than ____", so "___" should be "weather" (or something corresponding to that idea).

The weather in Fresno is hotter than that in Chicago.

"that in chicago" = "the weather in chicago", so this sentence is perfectly constructed.

[DiZ806]

The weather in Fresno is hotter than in Chicago.

this sentence doesn't work.
it's constructed as "the weather ... is ... hotter than ____", so "___" should be "weather" (or something corresponding to that idea).

The weather in Fresno is hotter than that in Chicago.

"that in chicago" = "the weather in chicago", so this sentence is perfectly constructed.

Thank you Ron

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.

[thanghnvn]

[quote="zhuyujun"]Soaring television costs accounted for more than half the spending in the presidential campaign of 1992, a greater proportion than it was in any previous election.

A. a greater proportion than it was
B. a greater proportion than
C. a greater proportion than they have been
D. which is greater than was so
E. which is greater than it has been

I wish to return to this problem and focus on choice B and D

in B, "a greater proportion..." refers to/modifies "more than half the spending....". "a greater proportion..." dose not modify the whole idea in the main clause because this modification is not logic.

why D is wrong.
"which" grammatically and logically refers to "more than half of spending...".
D is wrong because of "so". I do not know why
please, help.

[JianchengD868]

What does it refer to in A

it doesn't stand for anything at all.

the only singular nouns that precede it are "spending" and "the presidential campaign of 1992". clearly, neither of these is an appropriate antecedent, so this choice is just wrong.

Dear Ron,

Does "it" in choice A refer to "Soaring television costs"?
I think "was" in choice A is wrong and the underlined part should be written as "a greater proportion than it did".
However, "it did" completely repeat "Soaring television costs accounted for", so we need to eliminate the repeated part, this is choice B.
Am I right?
Thank you for your time.

regards,
jianchengD868