SC - According to a survey..

[gal_gitter]

According to a survey of graduating medical students conducted by the Association of American Medical Colleges, minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than are other graduates in planning to practice in socioeconomically deprived areas.

minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than are other graduates in planning to practice
minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than other graduates who plan on practicing
minority graduates are nearly four times as likely as other graduates to plan on practicing
it is nearly four times more likely that minority graduates rather than other graduates will plan tio practice
it is nearly four times as likely for minority graduates than other graduates to plan to practice

----
two questions here - 1) I'd appreciate it if someone could explain the rule for saying "four times as likely" as oppoosed to "four times more likely" , can you only say the former?
2) Is it incorrect to use the form According XXX, it / there YYYY ? Is according considered a gerund like having??

thanks a lot!

[RonPurewal]

1) I'd appreciate it if someone could explain the rule for saying "four times as likely" as oppoosed to "four times more likely" , can you only say the former?

mathematically, they have different meanings.
if an event has probability p, then "four times MORE likely" would be probability 5p, while "four times AS likely" would be probability 4p.

on the verbal part of the test, though, they don't always respect this difference. (in fact, they regularly conflate "x times more than" with "x times as much as", even though there is a clear and marked distinction between the two.)

the idioms are different, though. with "as likely", you need "as likely AS". with "more likely", you need "more likely THAN".

2) Is it incorrect to use the form According XXX, it / there YYYY ? Is according considered a gerund like having??

thanks a lot!

"according to X" means that X said/wrote whatever follows.
i'm not sure how it's classified grammatically, but you can eliminate it completely without changing the grammar of the sentence at all.
in other words,
According to X, blah blah blah... has the same grammar as just blah blah blah...

[agha79]

Can you kindly post the OA? is it "B"

[anoo.anand]

Please provide the OA.

idiom used More X than Y

minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than are other graduates in planning to practice --->> MORE Likely THAN are > incorrect idiom

minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than other graduates who plan on practicing --->> MORE Likely THAN are > incorrect idiom

[editor: the above are incorrect; "X are four times as likely as are Y to..." is perfectly ok.
the idiom error is "likely ... IN planning" or "likely ... WHO plan"; these are wrong. the correct idiom is "likely ... TO plan".]

minority graduates are nearly four times as likely as other graduates to plan on practicing -- > correct AS LIKELY AS


it is nearly four times more likely that minority graduates rather than other graduates will plan tio practice

idiom

it is nearly four times as likely for minority graduates than other graduates to plan to practice

idiom


PLease SEE ... BOTH PLAN TO and PLAN ON -verbing are CORRECT.


.

[acethegmat]

if more likely than is correct as Ron mentioned, what's wrong with A or B?

Shouldn't C to be correct be: are 4 times as likely as are other graduates??

Ron, would you please explain why 'are' is omitted in the correct AC. Thanks.

[acethegmat]

Ron,

One of your posts says:

"plan on VERBing", by the way, is spoken language. it's substandard written language, and should be considered incorrect; the correct form is "plan to VERB".

while in this post you select the AC with "plan on 'ing'" that is contradictory to your earlier explanations.

Would you please explain the difference in your explanation.

Thanks

[jahnavi_p]

I thought the answer would be C. But than, reading all the posts, I am confused about the usage of 'more likely than" and 'as likely as'. I stil think that C sounds right.........
What is the OA?
Ron, can you explain the difference between these idioms? Thanks

[sanyalpritish]

Hi,

I agree with the above explaination ... But what is the OA.
Second if we notice we will boil down to B or C, in B who usage plays a role as well, who is refering to whom is the Questions, grad.. who applied or who will apply...

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

One of your posts says:

"plan on VERBing", by the way, is spoken language. it's substandard written language, and should be considered incorrect; the correct form is "plan to VERB".

while in this post you select the AC with "plan on 'ing'" that is contradictory to your earlier explanations.

Would you please explain the difference in your explanation.

Thanks

ah, yeah. this.

what they're doing here is employing language that's normally considered substandard, in order to avoid ugly word repetition.

specifically, they don't want to have two "to"s in three words.
so, in order to avoid writing
to plan to practice
they go to their #2 choice, which is "to plan on practicing".

there are other problems on which they do the same thing.
ex:
normally you'd say "evidence that suggests..."
but you don't want to say "evidence that suggests that..."
so, in this case, they'll go with their #2 choice, and write
evidence to suggest that...

similarly, if you see "the extent of the shift of light", you can knock that off, too.

[RonPurewal]

I thought the answer would be C. But than, reading all the posts, I am confused about the usage of 'more likely than" and 'as likely as'. I stil think that C sounds right.........
What is the OA?
Ron, can you explain the difference between these idioms? Thanks

(c) is better than the other choices.

i posted above about the difference between "4 times as likely as" and "4 times more likely than".
both of these are grammatically correct, but they have slightly different mathematical meanings. apparently, they feel free to be mathematically sloppy on the verbal portion of the test.

[hamza6]

Thanks Ron for the explanations.

But this is a bad bad trick. Till now, I had been mathematically targetting the SC part, and now I have to look for the better choice, not the right one....

:s

[RonPurewal]

Thanks Ron for the explanations.

But this is a bad bad trick. Till now, I had been mathematically targetting the SC part, and now I have to look for the better choice, not the right one....

:s

good luck!

it's true -- not everything is always optimal.

[akhp77]

Hi Ron,

minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than other graduates who plan on practicing
minority graduates are nearly four times as likely as other graduates to plan on practicing

Cab you please explain that why "who plan on practicing" is wrong?


Thanks

[ranjeet1975]

Hi Ron,

minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than other graduates who plan on practicing
minority graduates are nearly four times as likely as other graduates to plan on practicing

Cab you please explain that why "who plan on practicing" is wrong?


Thanks

"who plan to practice' is right instead of 'who plan on practicing'

[suba_2k2]

Hi Ron,

minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than other graduates who plan on practicing
minority graduates are nearly four times as likely as other graduates to plan on practicing

Cab you please explain that why "who plan on practicing" is wrong?


Thanks

"who plan to practice' is right instead of 'who plan on practicing'

Still not sure how "to plan on practicing" is better than " who plan on practicing" - OA is C and hence its "to plan on practicing" ..Can someone explain the difference please..