A new skin whitening cream is being sold for four times the actual

no replies for this one OA updated.

I went with B could someone explain this question?

That was a super quick reply, thanks plumber250.

Only C seems to make sense !!!

What the OA ?

My pick is Option D.
Provide the OA

Idiom should be X is Four times y.
but i believe the passive voice in the sentence needs four times of y.
My take is D
What's the OA/OE ?

This is a GMAT Pill question, but I believe this question would hardly appear in GMAT. Here's my reasoning

1. four times the actual price, per gram, as the cream's maker charges - Even if we remove AS, the sentence would make sense.
2. The sentence makes sense when we use 'that' - four times the actual price, per gram, that the cream's maker charges.
3. The sentence would even make sense if we use 'of what' - four times the actual price, per gram, of what the cream's maker charges.

Hello James!!

Is the use of 'of what' grammatically correct here? Is it rejected because it is too wordy?

It should be that.because when we compare some similarity of two things but both are different then we use that.

Like :-his pot of money was more than that of ramesh's pot of money.

C is the correct answer.

Not only does D use more words to express the same meaning, it is also logically incorrect. "Of what" is posessive. Example:

"X's price at Store Y is four times the price of what Store Z charges". However, it would still be more correct and concise to use "that", but "of what" is an acceptable choice. "X's price at store Y is four times the price that Store z charges"

In the case of OP's question, we are not comparing one posessive with another. It is a straight apples to apples comparison. We are comparing Price X to Price Y; "That" is the correct usage.

"X is being sold for four times the price that Y is sold for.

Other than concision I don't see any difference between C and D.
Help pls!!

Concision comes no where here in between C and D.

A new skin whitening cream is being sold for four times the actual price, per gram, as the cream's maker charges for a different whitening product with the same active ingredient.

A. as............defines purpose or reason which does not make sense here.
B. than.......comparison such as more than or less than scenarios but the comparison is already made so than does not fit here.
C. that.........exactly fits the bill. as the sentence is like below
X is sold for 4 times Y,phrase defining Y.
because we know that new cream is being sold 4 times the actual price of similar cream. but what cream does the actual price belong to and the reason of comparison is best indicated here by the use of that.
D. of what...this would have been a correct choice if there was no of before pronoun what.
actual price is the price charged by maker.
instead of what gives a different meaning as if the maker charges some part of the actual price.
this induces a confusion in comparison not knowing what thing is being compared to what.
E. at which............changes the intended meaning.

I don't think the meaning is changed by use of of what
Eg. A gets four times of what C gets
Now this is a correct sentence, and also it doesn't mean some part of what C gets.

Please elaborate your explanation.

Let's consider the sentence with option D.

A new skin whitening cream is being sold for four times the actual price, per gram, of what the cream's maker charges for a different whitening product with the same active ingredient.


Now just consider the part

Four times the actual price of what the cream's maker charges

Now the substantive clause "what the cream's maker charges" is a noun and it essentially represemts a price.

So this sentence is essentially saying four times the actual price of some price.

This doesn't make sense. PRICE OF CREAM would make sense but not the price of some price

Using that instead of "of what" fixes the issue as that modifies the price or essentially represents the object of clause "cream maker charges"

Hope it helps.

plumber250 why is than wrong?
also if than what was one of the options, would it have been correct??

"Than" is used along with a comparative adjective. There is no comparative adjective in the sentence.

X sells for 4 times the price than Y sells .... wrong. (no comparative - hence "than" wrong)
X sells for 4 times the price that Y sells .... correct. ("that" refers to "price" - "that Y sells" is the modifier for "price")
X sells for a price higher than that Y sells for... correct. (comparative "higher" requires "than")