In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeolog

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Comparisons + Idioms

. Terms such as "more" and "less" must have a logical sequence with "than"; in a comparison, "more/less...than" is the idiomatic construction.
. A comparison must always be made between similar elements.

A: This answer choice incorrectly compares the noun “civilization” to the verb phrase “was the city Homer's heroes knew”; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar elements. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “older as”; remember, terms such as "more" and "less" must have a logical sequence with "than"; in a comparison, "more/less...than" is the idiomatic construction.

B: Correct. This answer choice correctly compares the noun “civilization” with the noun “the city”. Further, Option B correctly uses the idiomatic construction “ancient + than”. Additionally, Option B is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

C: This answer choice incorrectly compares the noun “civilization” to the verb phrase “was the city known to Homer's heroes”; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar elements.

D: This answer choice incorrectly compares the noun “civilization” to the verb phrase “Homer's heroes knew”; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar elements. Further, Option D uses the needlessly wordy phrase “more ancient of a city”, rendering it awkward and redundant.

E: E. This answer choice incorrectly compares the noun “civilization” to the verb phrase “was the one known to Homer's heroes”; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar elements. Further, Option E uses the needlessly wordy phrase “older of a city”, rendering it awkward and redundant.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Intended meaning:
The sentence presents a few facts.
The German archaeologist Schliemann was eager to find a city worthy of Priam.
He did two things:

• He cut through Troy
• He uncovered a civilization a thousand years [u]older than other cities known to Homer's heroes

Incorrect comparision.
We are comparing a civilization which was a thousand years old with
verb = was knew
Also a comparative degree such as more / older is always followed by than.
E.g. Francis has more apples than Rhea. (correct)
Francis has more apples as Rhea (incorrect)


Correct, two nouns are compared now: a civilization with a city, which is known to Homer's heroes


Same problem of incorrect comparision of noun vs verb as in (A)
Correct usage of than after more.


Complete mess. Again the modifier ancient refers back to civilization,
but we need to compare two nouns, not a noun and a verb.


Incorrect comparision of verb vs noun

(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew
--- "than" is missing - out

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes
-- words after "than" -- the city (noun)..
check words before "more" --

" uncovered a civilization a thousand years more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes"
i think -- "years" is a Noun and so the comparison is between "years" and "the city"--- illogical

(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes

(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew

(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes

How do you understand the comparison?
I get these types of questions wrong..

I am not able to understand the comparison in each option..

Hi there saurabh9gupta here my explanation not sure if it helps

If you read sentence from the very begining you will see that it starts with noun phrase i guess so " city worthy of Priam" I will replace this extract from sentence "the German archaeologist Schliemann" with just "archeologist" see below. to make it shorter. the meaning remians the same.

So the whole meaning of a sentence is that archelogist was looking for a city. So he discovered a civilization more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes.

As you see civilazation refers back the city


In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam,archaeologist cut through Troy and uncovered a civilization a thousand years older as was the city Homer's heroes knew.

(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew (this is not a correct idiom ) as you mentined yoyrself older than is correct

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes (here we compare "civilization" (noun) to the city )

(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes ( here you compare civilization to the verb "was" , and that is not correct , cause after "than" noun should be followed)

(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew ( not correct cause comparative adjective "more ancient" should be followed by "than" and not by "of")

(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes ( same issue as in D)


cheers

When it comes to referring to civilizations, or things of historical import, then ancient is the word and not old. We use that word to denote things that we can understand mostly through relics because they are deep in the past.
We mostly refer old to human beings or things which are near our times or stuff of a reasonably comparable timeline. Therefore, I would not say that my President is more ancient than others are unless I mean to ridicule him.
We will conveniently remove choice A, C, and E, for using wrong diction.

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes -- wrong comparison here. We are comparing civilization with a city.


(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew -- correct choice. ---The possessive 'more ancient of a city' brings out the parallelism of comparison even.

Perhaps we may be tempted to select B as the correct choice as it is more precise than D. However, we must remember that civilization is only an attribute of a city and attributes must be compared with attributes only. Some might say that D is an awkward comparison and so on. But be that as it may.

Incidentally, this question seems to belong to the previous century and is more ancient or older than I imagined. Any reason for unearthing this?

Oh Hell, i think you can be are right daagh civilazation more ancient of city hmm

BUT daagh yes we are comparing civilization with city in B, AND by civilization, an ancent city is implied.

For example:

i have been searching for an ancient city since 300 BC and finally found a civilization more ancient than i ever expected.

now in the example above by civilazation is implied city. Ancient city = civilization why not ?

First, aGordeno , welcome to GMAT Club!

Official Explanation

This OE is pretty good.

I'll add a few notes because this question is linguistically difficult.

In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeologist Schliemann cut through Troy and uncovered a civilization a thousand years older as was the city Homer's heroes knew.

Perhaps you have never read or heard of an ancient Greek writer named Homer who wrote The Iliad, downloadable here.

Perhaps you have never heard of or seen the film titled Troy, described here. (I give the film a thumbs up!)

Who is Priam? Who is Homer? WHAT is this sentence talking about?

For correct analyses that include context, read at dave13 's and adkikani 's answers

For a correct analysis that does not include context quite as specifically as do the answers immediately above, read warrior1991 's answer

I cannot decide whether there is a "best" answer.

There are three excellent answers: dave13 , adkikani, and warrior1991
Kudos to all three.

Nicely done.

As per the OE, the reason to eliminate options A, C and E is given as "the more ancient civilization continues to be a thousand years more ancient than Troy". So, it is incorrect to use the past tense.
I agree with that.
But if we ignore the above tense logic issue for the moment, is it okay for an action verb(was in this case) to follow 'than'?

Generally, 'than' is followed by noun? Thus we can discard options in which an action verb follows 'than'?

I know more about Shakespeare than does my highly educated brother. -- 'does' is a helping verb. This statement is okay.

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , GMATGuruNY , VeritasKarishma , VeritasPrepBrian , MartyMurray , RonPurewal other experts - please enlighten

Although I've never come across a construction in which an action verb swaps places with its subject after than, was itself is never an action verb. The sentence below with was (1) should be read as (2).

1. X was older than was Y.
2. X was older than Y was old.

3. X was working faster than was Y.
4. X was working faster than Y was working.

In (4), was itself is not an action verb (was working is the full verb).

5. I know more about Shakespeare than does my highly educated brother.
6. I know more about Shakespeare than my highly educated brother knows about Shakespeare.

7. X works faster than does Y.

in (5) and (7), does is a helping verb, know is a linking verb, and works is an action verb. I can't think of a sentence that would be correct with an actual action verb before its subject after than.

8. X works faster than works Y.

I understand that B is the best among 5.

However, is the use "more ancient" acceptable

Yes. It's just the comparative (we would not normally go with something like ancienter). You can also try this with a word like difficult:

The last question was a thousand times more difficult than the first.

I have seen multiple such instances in which verb is followed by the second comparison noun. Honestly, not able to find a concrete reason to eliminate C.

you can make the sentence in simpler form



Core sentence:
G uncovered place
OLDER THAN
something


B says: G uncovered place MORE ANCIENT THAN PLACE
C says: G uncovered place OLDER THAN place WAS KNOWN

You can easily figure out that B compares place vs place but C compares Place vs known
In other words
B compares noun vs noun (modifier- Noun modifier)
C compares noun vs clause ( NOUN WAS Modifier)

So B is clear and clean winner.

I hope it helps.

The key to cracking the same is getting the right meaning therefore keeping that in mind ]

(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew
it intends to say the city that horner knew was older

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes
This makes exact sense that the city know to horner's heroes

(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes
Ambigious use of than which doesn't help us with the meaning of the sentence

(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew
of a city isn't the right use of the words

(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes
Same as rge reasoning in D of a city isn't right

Hence IMO D

Small typo in B's explanation. 'Older' is not used. But it was helpful. Thank you

Hello happypuppy,

We hope this finds you well.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention; the error in our explanation has been rectified.

We are glad that you found our explanation helpful.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

isn't C] make sense logically as to what is the comparison about.

do we literally go into grammer of noun v/s verb when the meaning is clear. or C] creates a meaning error too?