A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

I have found this material when looking for instead of vs rather than:

The phrase rather than consists of an adverb and a conjunction and often means "and not," as in I decided to skip lunch rather than eat in the cafeteria again. It is grammatically similar to sooner than in that it is used with a "bare" infinitive—an infinitive minus to: I would stay here and eat flies sooner than go with them.

Rather than can also be used with nouns as a compound preposition meaning "instead of": I bought a mountain bike rather than a ten-speed. But some people object to this use, insisting that than should be used only as a conjunction. They therefore object to constructions in which rather than is followed by a gerund, as in Rather than buying a new car, I kept my old one.

In some cases, however, rather than can only be followed by a gerund and not by a bare infinitive. If the main verb of the sentence has a form that does not allow parallel treatment of the verb following rather than, you cannot use a bare infinitive, and you must use a gerund. This is often the case when the main verb is in a past tense or has a participle. Thus, you must say The results of the study, rather than ending (not end or ended) the controversy, only added to it. If the main verb was in the present tense (add), you could use the bare infinitive end.

Curiously, when the rather than construction follows the main verb, it can use other verb forms besides the bare infinitive. Thus you can say The results of the study added to the controversy rather than ended it.

The overriding concern in all of this should be to avoid faulty parallels, as in sentences like Rather than buy a new car, I have kept my old one and Rather than take a cab, she is going on foot.

Clearly, it is grammatically defensible to follow rather than with a gerund, but if you prefer to avoid the controversy, use instead of with gerunds.


Based on what the bolded paragraph says the answer I think is C.

I would go for E.

to retire rather than face is correct.
rather than is usually followed by an infinitive without to

Thats Odd!

C is explicitly parallel, so wondering why its not C over E which is implicitly parallel!!!!!!!
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Thanks!

I think elected to retire is more idiomatic than elected retiring.

So C is out. E maintains the parallelism by using bare infinitive.
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hey ya......

Once again, GMAT demonstarates a disdain for instead of sentence formations. This is a reoccuring pattern we have seen time and time again. Is this just the testmakers preference or is there a hard and fast rule that I am missing???

24. A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

I think it cannot be E because its not parallel... rather than face lawsuits and rising costs

FOr this reason i would go with C

Only (E) uses the correct S-V agreement + active voice

The OA is E

I was hesitant between D and E. Since D uses "facing", again, with the "ing", do you only use ing when there is cause and effect?