"Hi mate!
Excellent question, thank you!
Hmm... But have you managed to tag your question appropriately?
As I see you did not tag neither the source or type of the question. Please tag it - it will help many test takers after you.
In addition, please make sure you post the official answer(s).

Please underline the sentence!

If you have further questions, please refer this thread for more details: tagging-questions-102752.html/

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Thanks!
Pkit
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Formatting issues aside, I've always loved this question as a great example of a comparison error.

When a comparison is drawn on a sentence correction question, two major themes should jump out at you:

1) The two things compared must be compared in equivalent form.

Here, we could compare:

Dirt roads to paved roads
Maintaining dirt roads to maintaining dirt roads

But comparing "the cost of maintaining dirt roads" to "paved roads" is incorrect - one is a cost, and the other is a road...they could never be alike!

Make sure that, when a comparison is drawn, you check to ensure that the two items are in equivalent form. I like to envision a balance scale from chemistry class as a mental picture. If I'm weighing a substance in a petri dish I must account for the weight of the dish on the other side of the balance! Similarly, if I'm comparing a cost of one item, I have to make sure I compare it directly to the cost of the other.


2) Comparison idioms should be in the right form.

This one doesn't have a mistake, but you should get in the habit of seeing:

"As Many As" or "As Much As" ---> Equality
"So Many That" or "So Much That" ---> Critical Mass (e.g. "there is so much pollution in the air that we can't go outside")
"More Than" or "Less Than" ---> Inequality

An easy way for the testmakers to write a wrong-but-tricky answer is to criss-cross these idioms (e.g. "As many that" or "More...as")


In this case, the comparisons are all off but one:

A) Dirt roads cost vs. Maintaining paved roads
B) Dirt roads cost vs. paved roads do ("do" takes the place of "cost") ---> CORRECT!
C) Maintaining dirt roads costs vs. paved roads cost
D) Maintaining dirt roads costs vs. it does
E) To maintain dirt roads vs. for paved roads


Only B puts each element in the same form, so B is a correct comparison while the others miss the mark.
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I share your sentiment Imania. I gave you a KUDOS. I feel people don't respect the pain others take to post a good question. the first instinct is to give KUDOS to an explanation which is weird because without the great question there would be no great explanations.
Well, thats unfair but so is the world .

LOL ))

Receiving/Giving Kudos: kudos-what-are-they-and-why-we-have-them-94812.html
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Great question. It took me 56seconds to figure our the right answer. But thanks for posting it. I gave you kudos for it.

Thanks for this question Guys!!!
I still cant choose between B and C...
Can somebody help me
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Shikhar

Hi Brian,

Isn't their a subject-verb disagreement in C, D, and E.
roads - costs
This can also be used to eliminate these these choices.

KR,

Hi anilisani:

I guess you picked D because you thought "it" refers to "maintaining", is that correct? Let replace "it" by "maintaining", so D will be:

(D) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as maintaining does for paved roads

You can see the structure is not parallel. "maintaining X costs twice as much as maintaining does for Y" ==> D may be correct if its structure is "maintaining X costs twice as much as maintaining Y does"

Hope it's clear.
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Choosing correct answers is not as important as explaining why other answers are wrong. Keep learning everyday!