The number of people flying first

[RonPurewal]

if you have '____, twice as many as...', the point is that '____' must answer the question, What specific number/quantity is 2 times some other one?

normally, that's going to be an actual number. (see examples above.)

it's possible to write such a sentence without an actual number, as long as the substitute still clearly refers to a single numerical figure (e.g., Last night Hector drank an unbelievable number of vodka shots, twice as many as I had ever seen him drink in a single night before).
on the other hand, the test will almost certainly not do such a thing (or, if it does, you won't be tested on it). if they're going to test you on something, they're not going to belabor the point.

[RonPurewal]

just don't forget that THIS IS A MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST.
DO NOT try to learn HOW TO WRITE these sentences. that's an irrelevant skill set—and it will erode your ability to solve these problems (not to mention that it's WAY more difficult).

if you face this issue on the actual exam, you'll face a choice between...
... '[SPECIFIC NUMBER], twice as many as...'
and
... '[SOMETHING THAT'S CLEARLY NOT A SPECIFIC NUMBER], twice as many as...'

that's not a hard decision.

[harika.apu]

just don't forget that THIS IS A MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST.
DO NOT try to learn HOW TO WRITE these sentences. that's an irrelevant skill set—and it will erode your ability to solve these problems (not to mention that it's WAY more difficult).

if you face this issue on the actual exam, you'll face a choice between...
... '[SPECIFIC NUMBER], twice as many as...'
and
... '[SOMETHING THAT'S CLEARLY NOT A SPECIFIC NUMBER], twice as many as...'

that's not a hard decision.

Thanks Ron.
Faced with similar kind of question and choose one with specific number

[RonPurewal]

that's the take-home point, yes.

[ShriramC110]

Hi Ron,

I have came across a OG question,i am modifying the question as offical questions are not allowed.

Today ,because of improvement in industrial technology,the same amount of machines produces double the products that it has in 2010.

Option choice that is correct is:
twice as many products as it did

According to your explanation, as many as should refer to noun, that is either some quantity or it should refer to some statistics.
But in the question there is no quantity nor any statistics.
Can you tell me why the answer choice is right?

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

I have came across a OG question,i am modifying the question as offical questions are not allowed.

Today ,because of improvement in industrial technology,the same amount of machines produces double the products that it has in 2010.

Option choice that is correct is:
twice as many products as it did

According to your explanation, as many as should refer to noun, that is either some quantity or it should refer to some statistics.

this is a different, and altogether unrelated, construction.

in the discussion here, '_____, twice as many as...' is a MODIFIER, so it must actually describe something. that is not happening in your example.

[RonPurewal]

also, OG is a banned source here, as per the forum rules.

...and banned means banned. (i.e., 'i'll ask about OG problems but just change the words a little' is banned, too.) thank you in advance for respecting this rule.

[RakshithG27]

by the way, you can strike (d) and (e) without even seeing the prompt.
as soon as you see "twice as many as the increase...", these choices are automatically incorrect (since "increase" is not a countable quantity).

Ron, are you using the keyword "many" here to determine that the object should be countable? Is "Twice as much as" unidiomatic?

here's the basic idea:

if you say "twice as many", then this construction should be paired with a countable noun.
e.g., twice as many dogs --> "dogs" is a countable noun

if you said "twice as much", then this construction should be paired with an uncountable noun.
e.g., twice as much water --> "water" is an uncountable noun

if the noun in question is already an explicitly numerical quantity, then you should use neither "much" nor "many". instead, you should just use "twice" or "double" by itself.
e.g., twice the increase --> "increase" is an explicitly numerical quantity

these rules are followed pretty closely.
so, for instance:
twice as much water --> correct, since "water" is an uncountable noun (but is not an explicitly numerical quantity)
twice the water... --> incorrect, since water is not a numerical quantity

twice as much as the increase... --> incorrect; redundant
twice the increase... --> correct

Also, is there a generic rule regarding the uses of twice/double?

i don't know of one, other than restrictions on parts of speech, of which you are almost certainly already aware (e.g., "double" can be a verb, while "twice" clearly can't)

Ron,

A few doubts.

1. Could you please provide more examples of Explicit Numerical Quantities.

2. Can I consider 'Rise' and 'Raise' also as Explicit Numerical Quantities?
Ex 1: WPI Inflation for October is at 5.12%, twice the rise of the previous month.
Ex 2: X got a raise of 6%, twice the raise of the previous calendar year.

3. If we use ' [ Clause ], double [Clause]' , 'double' will act as an appositive right? So we would require some sort of number before the comma?

Thanks in advance.

[mikalaisin]

Hi Ron,
can you please help me in eliminating the Choice B. I got stuck between two options A and B.

I thought B is more correct than A is.
The number of people ..... doubling ( the number of) the increase.

Thus i thought THAT conveys proper meaning and that=number

Can you please help me to clear my understanding?

[RonPurewal]

there is copious discussion of both choices in the thread.

please read the ENTIRE thread (or, at the very least, all of my posts in it).
yes, it's a long thread, but your answers should be contained in it.

thanks.

[eveH982]

hi ron. i've already seen your post that said

if you're going to say COMMA + "twice as many as...", then that's incorrect unless there's actually a quantity in front of the comma.
e.g.
last year i read 40 books, twice as many as i read in the preceding year
--> correct
last year the number of books i read increased dramatically, twice as many as i read in the preceding year
--> incorrect

from that i know that i need a quantity before "twice as many as..." and that "the number of books"(in the underlined part) is not a quantity, so that sentence is wrong.

But i've also seen another post of yours:

it's possible to write such a sentence without an actual number, as long as the substitute still clearly refers to a single numerical figure (e.g., Last night Hector drank an unbelievable number of vodka shots, twice as many as I had ever seen him drink in a single night before).

it seems that "a single numerical figure" also makes sense before "twice as many as". so i wonder why is that sentence wrong in your example, since "the number of books" is also a single numerical figure, right?

last year the number of books i read increased dramatically, twice as many as i read in the preceding year.

thanks ^^

[RonPurewal]

the point of the sentence is that it INCREASED, so, no, it's not a single numerical figure in that sentence. it's two different figures (before and after the increase).

[eveH982]

hi ron! in this question:

According to surveys by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 20 percent of young adults used cocaine in 1979, (A)doubling those reported in the 1977 survey.

OA (E) : twice the number reported in the 1977 survey

we cannot choose A for the following three reasons :

#1. "a figure doubles another figure" is nonsense, since "double" as a transitive means to "to make something twice as big or twice as much" ;

#2. You can double the number of young adults, but you can't "double" the young adults themselves.

#3. still because "double" as a transitive means to "to make something twice as big or twice as much", we can't change something that has already be the case.
"double those reported"


for the same reason, we can't say:

"Sam's former views on poverty were changed by his work."

because one can't change one's prior views. whatever they were, they were.


please correct me if there's anything wrong in my reasoning.

Thanx!

[RonPurewal]

this discussion thread has almost 150 posts. these ideas are certainly going to be in there somewhere.

please try not to post ideas that are already contained in the thread. thank you. (if you are responding to something that's posted earlier in the thread, please quote the text to which you are responding.)

[eveH982]

this discussion thread has almost 150 posts. these ideas are certainly going to be in there somewhere.

please try not to post ideas that are already contained in the thread. thank you. (if you are responding to something that's posted earlier in the thread, please quote the text to which you are responding.)

Thank you for ur answer, Ron~~

but there's another question about "double VS twice" that confused me for a veeeery long time! so I really long for your answer.

in the sentence:

According to surveys by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 20 percent of young adults used cocaine in 1979, twice the number reported in the 1977 survey. (OA)

Can we change "twice" into "double" here if "double" serves as an adjective and both "double" and "twice" mean one figure is two times another figure?

Thanks!! This question means a lot to me...