Salt deposits and moisture

[farley99]

Salt deposits and moisture threaten to destroy the Mohenjo-Daro excavation in Pakistan, the site of an ancient civilization that flourished at the same time as the civilizations in the Nile delta and the river valleys of Tigris and Euphrates.

a. same
b. that had flourished at the same time as had the civilizations
c. that flourished at the same time those had
d. flourishing at the same time as those did
e. flourishing at the same time as those were




Ron,
The official answer is A, but doesn't A lack parallelism in saying, "civilization that flourished at the same time as the civilizations in the Nile..."? Does it not need to say, "civilization that flourished at the same time as the civilizations in the Nile flourished"?

[farley99]

Or "...as civilizations in the Nile...did"?

[Guest]

Or "...as civilizations in the Nile...did"?

bump

[RonPurewal]

nope.

if you have a parallel construction involving tensed verbs, and the tensed verb is EXACTLY THE SAME in both (or all, if there are more than 2) parts of the construction, then you may omit the verb in all but the first part.

for instance:
the rain was torrential and the wind fierce.
in this case, we're allowed to omit the second 'was', because it's identical to the 'was' in the first part.

same goes here: since the verb is exactly the same ("flourished") in both parts, you can omit it from the second part.

--

by the way, if you WERE going to include "did", preferred usage conventions actually place it BEFORE its subject: "...as did the civilizations in the nile delta..."
one would never speak this way, but it's the best way to write these sorts of constructions in formal usage.

[farley]

thanks Ron!

[JonathanSchneider]

: )

[vishnuvl]

While I purely agree with Ron's explanation and examples, I am still a litle confused about the application of the specific rule to the case in hand.

can you please explain whether the rule applies for comparisions as well?

eg: I ran better than he. (or) I ran better than he did/ran.

[RonPurewal]

While I purely agree with Ron's explanation and examples, I am still a litle confused about the application of the specific rule to the case in hand.

can you please explain whether the rule applies for comparisions as well?

eg: I ran better than he. (or) I ran better than he did/ran.

comparisons may be decided by the usual conventions of parallelism.

in your example -- which i will change by replacing the pronouns with specific names, so that we can avoid the awkward issue of pronoun case (which will absolutely not be tested on the gmat) -- either of those constructions is fine:

francis ran faster than xavier.
francis ran faster than xavier ran.
francis ran faster than did xavier.
francis ran faster than xavier did.

all parallel. the repetition in the second one would likely be considered fairly awkward, though; that's the point of replacing "ran" with the helping verb "did" in the third and fourth examples.

[priya219]

Hi Ron,

On the basis of above explanations, please explain why the below one is wrong?

"The tycoon contributed more to the candidate's campaign than anyone else in the industry"

This one is from the manhattan verbal guide.Following is the correct answer as per guide:
The tycoon contributed more to the candidate's campaign than did anyone else in the industry.
"contributed" is repeated here!

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

On the basis of above explanations, please explain why the below one is wrong?

"The tycoon contributed more to the candidate's campaign than anyone else in the industry"

This one is from the manhattan verbal guide.Following is the correct answer as per guide:
The tycoon contributed more to the candidate's campaign than did anyone else in the industry.
"contributed" is repeated here!

Thanks

hmm, yeah, both of those should be correct, since there's no ambiguity in the first one.
i'll submit that to be fixed. thanks.

as an example of a construction that is genuinely ambiguous, consider the following:
the tycoon supported Jones more than anyone else in the industry
this sentence genuinely has two meanings: (a) the tycoon supported jones more than the tycoon supported anyone else; (b) the tycoon supported jones more than anyone else supported jones.
the key to the ambiguity of this sentence (and also the key to why the preceding sentence is NOT ambiguous) is the fact that all three of "the tycoon", "jones", and "anyone else" are parallel -- they are all people -- and thus that both (a) and (b) above are properly parallel comparisons.

in the original example, the only two parallel constructions are "the tycoon" and "anyone else", so that sentence is unambiguous even without the helping verb.

[tapesh]

In Question 51 of OG10, one of the option says.

His courage was as that of Rosa Parks.

OG says, AS can not be used to compare noun phrase and mark this option as incorrect.

So we cannot omit the verb in this sentence because of linking verb and omit the other verbs as we did in question in hand, is this reasoning correct ?

So how to find that AS is comparing noun phrase or phrase after AS has omitted the Verb ?

Thanks,
TK

[tim]

Hi Tapesh,
It sounds like you're asking how we can identify clauses versus nouns for purposes of using AS vs. LIKE. It's as simple as this: look for a verb! If there's a verb on both sides of the comparison, you have clauses and will use AS. If not, you likely have nouns and will use LIKE..

[rx_11]

Hi, instructors,

Can you confirm whether the sentense below is also correct according to your previous post? This sentense is from Manhattan GMAT SC 4th.

As her brother did, Ava aced the test.-----------Correct

If we change it to:

As her brother, Ava aced the test.-----------Correct or not??

Could you plz confirm it? I'm not sure about it. Thank you!!!

[RonPurewal]

As her brother, Ava aced the test.-----------Correct or not??

Could you plz confirm it? I'm not sure about it. Thank you!!!

this is wrong, unless ava was dressed as her brother while taking the test.

read tim's post above yours -- if this is a comparison, "as" must be followed by a clause (with a subject and verb).
"her brother" doesn't have a verb.

if you replace "as" with "like" in that sentence, then it becomes correct.

[rx_11]

Hi, instructors,

Could u explain what's wrong with D?

Thanks very much!