SC COMPARISON

[alicezyk]

according-to-recent-studies-comparing-the-nutritional-value-t718.html

A link to a thread that is locked.
That's my question here.

According to recent studies comparing the nutritional value of meat from wild animals and meat from domesticated animals, wild animals have less total fat than do livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of fat they think is good for cardiac health.

A.wild animals have less total fat than do livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of fat they think is
B.wild animals have less total fat than livestock fed on grain and more of a kind of fat thought to be
C.wild animals have less total fat than that of livestock fed on grain and have more fat of a kind thought to be
D.total fat of wild animals is less than livestock fed on grain and they have more fat of a kind thought to be
E.total fat is less in wild animals than that of livestock fed on grain and more of their fat is of a kind they think is

Here is my analysis for the Answer choice B and C.
B is correct, because it correctly compares wild animals with livestock.

Another example could be: Rice has more protein than Wheat.

C is incorrect, because it compares wild animals to that.
Another incorrect example could be : Rice has protein of higher quality than Wheat.
It's incorrect because it compares protein to Wheat.
SO, to make it correct, we should say "Rice has protein of higher quality than that in wheat."

About the question: Why can't we use "that" in the sentence of "wild animals have less total fat than that of livestock "
but we can use in "Rice has protein of higher quality than that in wheat"

What's the difference?
My explanation is, if we change the first sentence to:
Wild animal have total fat less than THAT OF LIVESTOCK
Then it's correct. Because without "that of", it compares fat with livestock.

So the difference here is HAVE LESS TOTAL FAT with HAVE TOTAL FAT LESS THAN
The first one clearly uses less to modify FAT. While the second one seems comparing FAT with anything that is after LESS THAN
So the second one is ambiguous thus we need " that of "


Is my reasoning correct?
NEED HELP PLEASE.
Thanks!

[tim]

As per the forum rules, we need a verifiable source for the problem before we can deal with this question. If the question is not one of ours or one that is copyright-free, we will have to delete the question..

[alicezyk]

As per the forum rules, we need a verifiable source for the problem before we can deal with this question. If the question is not one of ours or one that is copyright-free, we will have to delete the question..

It's from PREP. Sorry.
But on the old post, Ron said it's not from PREP. So I posted it in the general verbal session.

[tim]

"PREP" is not a source. everything in this industry has the word PREP attached to it. furthermore, it sounds like you have no reason to believe this problem is from the source you claim. THIS IS A PROBLEM!!! if you don't know where the problems you are studying come from, you have no way to know if they are leading you astray by teaching you things that are simply not true about the GMAT..

[alicezyk]

"PREP" is not a source. everything in this industry has the word PREP attached to it. furthermore, it sounds like you have no reason to believe this problem is from the source you claim. THIS IS A PROBLEM!!! if you don't know where the problems you are studying come from, you have no way to know if they are leading you astray by teaching you things that are simply not true about the GMAT..

Oh sorry Tim. We Chinese students usually use Prep to refer to GMAT prep... And I do think it's from Prep since students have been discussing it for several years in our Chinese forum and everyone believes that it is from Gmat prep..

Well, probably the problem with this question is that it's way too old and doesn't look like questions GMAC will be making nowadays..

:p

[tim]

right. that's the problem you are likely to encounter if you can't verify the source of the problem yourself (another VERY frequent problem is that the problem may have changed from the original version through transcription errors). that's why you should NEVER (especially in China) get problems from other people but should instead go directly to the primary sources..

[alicezyk]

right. that's the problem you are likely to encounter if you can't verify the source of the problem yourself (another VERY frequent problem is that the problem may have changed from the original version through transcription errors). that's why you should NEVER (especially in China) get problems from other people but should instead go directly to the primary sources..

HAHA the "especially in China" part is so funny and it's indeed very true. LOL
：P Thanks! I think I should just ignore those unverified questions and stick to real GMAT questions.


But can you answer my quick question regarding the grammar usage?
Are these sentence correct?
Wild animals have total fat less than THAT OF LIVESTOCK
Wild animals have total fat less that livestock do.
:P Thanks again!

[tim]

i think both of your sentences contain errors you didn't intend to include (i.e. typos). go back and take a closer look at what you intended to write and what you actually wrote, and i'll be glad to help you once you confirm what examples you want me to comment on..

[alicezyk]

i think both of your sentences contain errors you didn't intend to include (i.e. typos). go back and take a closer look at what you intended to write and what you actually wrote, and i'll be glad to help you once you confirm what examples you want me to comment on..

Sorry Tim. My mistake.
Wild animals have total fat less amount than that of livestock. (can't figure out the error....囧)
Wild animals have total fat less than livestock do.

(These sentences sound weird.. but I was just trying to create a sentence of similar structure of " Rice has protein of higher quality than that in wheat/ wheat does)
Thanks :P

[jlucero]

i think both of your sentences contain errors you didn't intend to include (i.e. typos). go back and take a closer look at what you intended to write and what you actually wrote, and i'll be glad to help you once you confirm what examples you want me to comment on..

Sorry Tim. My mistake.
Wild animals have total fat less amount than that of livestock. (can't figure out the error....囧)
Wild animals have total fat less than livestock do.

(These sentences sound weird.. but I was just trying to create a sentence of similar structure of " Rice has protein of higher quality than that in wheat/ wheat does)
Thanks :P

Let's start with the example sentence:

Rice has protein of higher quality than (that in wheat/ wheat does)

When given a convoluted expression, try to simplify it:

Rice has higher quality protein than (that in wheat/wheat does)

We are comparing what Rice has vs what wheat has. Because you are comparing clauses (including a verb) you need to use the "wheat does" in your expression. Your example needs to be changed slightly to:

Wild animals have less X than Y.
Wild animals have less total fat than... (what are you comparing here- nouns or clauses?)
Wild animals have less total fat than livestock does.
or
Wild animals have fat in a lower total amount than livestock does.

[RonPurewal]

So the difference here is HAVE LESS TOTAL FAT with HAVE TOTAL FAT LESS THAN
The first one clearly uses less to modify FAT. While the second one seems comparing FAT with anything that is after LESS THAN
So the second one is ambiguous thus we need " that of "


Is my reasoning correct?
NEED HELP PLEASE.
Thanks!

a couple of additional things here:

* "X has/have less fat than Y" can represent either of two possible meanings:
1/
it can mean that (a) fat and (b) "Y" are both contained in X.
for instance, cottage cheese has less fat than protein.
2/
it can mean that "X" and "Y" are both things that contain fat, with "Y" the one containing more fat.
for instance, cottage cheese has less fat than ricotta cheese.
provided that the meaning of the sentence is clear, you can use this construction to mean either #1 or #2 without having to add additional words.

on the other hand, if there is ambiguity, then you should add words to remove that ambiguity.
e.g.
Chemistry involves less philosophy than physics.
--> this time, the sentence could reasonably be intended to convey either #1 or #2.

if you mean #1 -- i.e., the field of chemistry contains some philosophy and some physics, but proportionally more physics -- then you could remove the ambiguity by writing
Chemistry involves philosophy less than it does physics.
(if you have never seen this kind of sentence before, it may look awkward to you, but it's a correct construction.)

if you mean #2 -- i.e., the fields of chemistry and physics both contain philosophy, but physics contains more of it -- then you could remove the ambiguity by writing
Chemistry involves less philosophy than physics does
or
Chemistry involves less philosophy than does physics.

[Haibara]

Ron or Joe, sorry for opening this thread again.
After reading all your previous posts, I still don't know the correctness of the following expression(partly because you haven't given a clear "yes or no" answer to the original poster.):

Wild animals have total fat less than THAT OF LIVESTOCK

Is above sentence correct both grammatically and meaningly? I think this sentence has clear meaning, because we can tell that fat of wild animals is compared with fat of livestocks, without ambiguity. However, in terms of grammar, I suspect the correctness of the sentence, because it's in bad parallel form.
I might be kind of parallelism addict, since I also noticed the official answer of OG10-19, which reads "Rice has protein of higher quality than that in wheat."

I've known the correctness of the following sentence from your previous posts:
Wild animals have less total fat than livestock does.
Rice has protein of higher quality than wheat does.

But ，Ron or other experts， I do need a "yes or no" answer to such sentences:
Wild animals have total fat less than THAT OF LIVESTOCK
Wild animals have less total fat than THAT OF LIVESTOCK

Thank you very much.

[georgepa]

Wild animals have total fat less than THAT OF LIVESTOCK
Wild animals have less total fat than THAT OF LIVESTOCK

I think both your sentences are wrong. It looks like the THAT refers back to the noun Wild animals in both cases.

X than Y

X and Y need to be parallel

The following are parallel

• The total fat of wild animals is less than the total fat of livestock


• The total fat of wild animals is less than that of livestock

[that clearly refers to the total fat]
Editor: Both of these sentences are actually incorrect. See moderator post below.


Are you by any chance asking which of the two below are right?

X has something more than Y
X has more something than Y

e.g.
Alice has cars more than Bob
Alice has more cars than Bob

[RonPurewal]

Wild animals have total fat less than THAT OF LIVESTOCK
Wild animals have less total fat than THAT OF LIVESTOCK

Thank you very much.

Both wrong.

If the sentence looks like this:
THESE GUYS have more/less X than Y
then there are 2 possibilities, depending on what "Y" is.

1/
"Y" could be another thing that these guys have, comparable to "X". In this case, the parallel structures are "X" and "Y".
He drinks more soda than water.

2/
"Y" could be other people/animals/whatever, corresponding to THESE GUYS.
He drinks more soda than his sister.

So, you could write...
Wild animals have less fat than muscle. (#1)
Wild animals have less fat than livestock. (#2)
That's it.
"That of livestock" doesn't pass either test, even if "that" has a referent.

[RonPurewal]

Wild animals have total fat less than THAT OF LIVESTOCK
Wild animals have less total fat than THAT OF LIVESTOCK

I think both your sentences are wrong. It looks like the THAT refers back to the noun Wild animals in both cases.

X than Y

X and Y need to be parallel

The following are parallel

• The total fat of wild animals is less than the total fat of livestock


• The total fat of wild animals is less than that of livestock

[that clearly refers to the total fat]

Georgepa,

1/
Please stop posting as though you were a moderator.
Thank you in advance.

2/
No. Both of these are incorrect.

You can only write "X is less than Y" if X and Y are mathematical quantities.
E.g., The average weight of fitness models is less than that of bodybuilders. Correct, since "weight" is a mathematical quantity.

If X is something that exists in a smaller quantity than Y, you CANNOT write "X is less/fewer than Y".
Instead, you'd have to find some other way to write the comparison.
There is less X than Y.
These guys have fewer X's than those guys (do).
These guys have fewer X's than Y's.
And so on.