Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost so

Before we jump into this one: the sentence is clearly trying to compare the increase in land values in the pinelands to the increase in land values elsewhere. If we’re trying to compare those two things, a phrase like “as fast as” makes perfect sense, but if we say “so fast”, there’s actually no comparison happening: in this context, “so” basically means “very”, and just stresses that the increase was substantial.

With that in mind…


… “so fast” doesn't convey the correct meaning, since we’re trying to compare the increases inside pinelands to the increases elsewhere. We’d need to use something like “as fast as”, not “so fast.”

Plus, the phrase “what they did” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In this context, the verb “did” refers back to the verb “rose”, and “they” seems to refer to “land values”, so that gives us: “land values in most parts of the pinelands rose… even faster than what [land values rose] outside the pinelands.” That makes no sense at all.

So we can eliminate (A).


The phrase “so fast” still doesn’t make sense in (B) – see above for more on that issue.

Plus, “those” is a plural pronoun that refers back to “land values.” So if we replace “those” with “land values”, we get: “land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost so fast, (…modifier blah blah…), land values outside the pinelands.” That makes no sense, either.

(B) is gone, too.


This is getting closer, but the comparison still isn’t complete: we need this to say “as fast as”, not just “as fast.” If we replace “those” with its referent (“land values”), that gives us: “land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast, (…modifier blah blah…), land values outside the pinelands.” That doesn’t work.

And even if you think that the “than” inside that modifier (“and in some parts even faster than”) somehow applies to the rest of the comparison, we still have a problem: you can’t say “as fast than.”

So we can ditch (C).


This one seems to work! If we once again replace “those” with “land values”, we get: “…land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as, (…modifier blah blah…), land values outside the pinelands.” Great, we can keep (D).


(E) has a variation of the same problem we saw in (A): the phrase “what they did” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In this context, the verb “did” refers back to the verb “rose”, and “they” seems to refer to “land values.”

So that once again gives us: “land values in most parts of the pinelands rose… even faster than what [land values rose] outside the pinelands.” And that still makes no sense at all.

So (E) is out, and we’re left with (D).
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Dear tushain,
I'm happy to respond.

For simplicity, let's think about this without the intervening phrase, "and in some parts even faster than."
Version (D) = Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as those outside the pinelands. = CORRECT
Version (E) = Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as what they did outside the pinelands.
Version (G) = Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as they rose outside the pinelands.

The first is 100% correct by GMAT standards. The second, choice (E), is atrocious, and should be taken out back and shot: it is egregiously wrong. Your version, (G), is wrong for subtle technical reasons --- this is too subtle for the GMAT to test. You inadvertently created an incorrect answer choice that is incorrect for a reason harder than what the GMAT would test.

You see, this has to do with the subtle difference between personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns. A personal pronoun, such as "they" refers to a specific group of people or things --- the pronoun has a "personal" connection with those things. If I say "land values blah blah, and they ...", then the "they" must be referring to the exact same set of "land values." That's precisely the problem here. The first part talks about "land values in most parts of the pinelands," and second part talks about "land values outside the pinelands." These are two non-overlapping sets: none of the members of one set could possibly be the same as the member of the other set. We are talking about two mutually exclusive sets of "land values." That's precisely why the use of the personal pronoun, "they" is incorrect --- we are not referring to the same set of "land values"! For a case such as this, we need not a personal pronoun (e.g. "they") but one of the demonstrative pronouns. The four demonstrative pronouns are: this, that, these, those. The former two are singular, and the latter two are plural. For comparisons, we always need the ones indicated something distant --- "that" and "those." We are talking about "land values", plural, so we need "those." Choice (D) is the grammatically & logically correct way to say that we are referring to another set of land values, not the same set discussed in the first half of the sentence.

Once again, the GMAT is never going to test simply a split of personal vs. demonstrative pronouns --- that would be too difficult, too subtle, to be a deciding split all by itself. BUT, notice that the personal pronouns only appear in answer choices that are incorrect for other reasons. If you understand this point, it will make you more efficient at spotting wrong answers and eliminating them.

Does all this make sense?

Mike
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Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the meaning of this sentence is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as land values outside the pinelands did.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Comparisons + Idioms

• “as A as B” is correct, idiomatic usage.
• Comparison must always be made between similar things.
• The pronouns "that" and "those" are used to refer to variations of the subject, and "it" and "they" are used to refer to the exact subject.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "so fast"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as land values outside the pinelands did. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the pronoun "they" to refer to a variation of the subject "land values in most parts of the pinelands"; in other words, Option A uses "they" to refer to a set of land values other than those in most parts of the pineland; please remember, the pronouns "that" and "those" are used to refer to variations of the subject, and "it" and "they" are used to refer to the exact subject.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "so fast"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as land values outside the pinelands did.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "as A ("fast") B ("those outside the pinelands")"; please remember, “as A as B” is correct, idiomatic usage.

D: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the idiomatic construction "as A ("fast") as B ("those outside the pinelands")", conveying the intended meaning - that land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as land values outside the pinelands did. Further, Option D correctly compares "land values in most parts of the pinelands rose" with "those outside the pinelands (rose)"; in other words, Option D correctly compares how land values in most parts of the pinelands rose and how land values outside the pinelands rose. Additionally, Option D correctly uses the pronoun "those" to refer to a variation of the subject "land values in most parts of the pinelands"; in other words, Option D correctly uses "those" to refer to a set of land values other than those in most parts of the pineland.

E: This answer choice incorrectly compares "land values in most parts of the pinelands rose" to "what they did outside the pinelands"; in other words, Option E incorrectly compares how land values in most parts of the pineland rose to what action the land values took outside the pinelands; remember, a comparison must always be made between similar things. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the pronoun "they" to refer to a variation of the subject "land values in most parts of the pinelands"; in other words, Option E uses "they" to refer to a set of land values other than those in most parts of the pineland; please remember, the pronouns "that" and "those" are used to refer to variations of the subject, and "it" and "they" are used to refer to the exact subject.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

Additional Note: Please remember, in a comparison between two actions, repeated instances of a verb can be omitted for the sake of conciseness; in this case, a second instance of the verb "rose" has been omitted from the end of the sentence.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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I'm getting D...

Narrow down to D and E because the idiom requires "as fast as".
Eliminate E, because it implies that the whole phrase "land values in most parts of the pinelands" are also rising outside the pinelands, which is a contradiction.

I'm just trying to explain why not E....

"Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as, and in some parts even faster than what they did outside the pinelands. "

Notice there is a missing comma after "than."
Iimagine the comma and remove modifying clause:

"Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as what they did outside the pinelands. "

Now remove preposition "of":

"Last year, land values rose almost as fast as what they did outside the pinelands."

Does this sentence sound correct to you still?

No.... That's why D
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From OG Verbal 2:
Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost so fast, and in some parts even faster than what they did outside the pinelands.

A. so fast, and in some parts even faster than what they did
B. so fast, and in some parts even faster than, those
C. as fast, and in some parts even faster than, those
D. as fast as, and in some parts even faster than, those
E. as fast as, and in some parts even faster than what they did

Hi Mike
I have confusion between D and E.
in D: , and blah blah phrase, here and is in an appositive phrase (it is neither ending a list nor it is connecting 2 ICs). Therefore I have doubt. Otherwise, (because rose is an intransitive verb and we can drop the verb) the structure- X rose as fast as Y, seems perfect to me.

Now in E: ,and usage is also not fine to me because there are no 2 ICs. Also it does not seem as a list.
Otherwise, the structure- X rose as fast as Y did, seems perfect to me. However, "what" seems awkward and unnecessary to me.

The ideal sentence i think of are:
F. as fast as, in some parts even faster than, those
G. as fast as, in some parts even faster than, they did/rose

However, please explain and correct me.
Thanks.

Pretty strong words to negate E,Mike. Could you share on what exactly is wrong in E and what minimal changes would have fixed it?

Dear himanshujovi,
I'm happy to respond. Yes, strong words. I feel I should add the caveat -- I am actually deeply committed to non-violence, and would not recommend taking any living person out back to shoot them! Nevertheless, I am very strong in my metaphors because I think it is helpful for student to develop a keen sense of what kinds of SC answer choices are just over-the-top wrong. The official questions often contain one or two answer choices that are egregiously wrong, and spotting these instantly is enormously helpful in negotiating the SC questions. For example, in this question, any student who spent time pondering over Choice (E) would be wasting precious time & energy.

Think about this sentence ....
Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as, and in some parts even faster than, ....
Now, think about the possible endings for that sentence:
1) .... those outside the pinelands = elegant & precise; the OA. This sets the gold standard for directness & concision.

2) ... those rose outside the pineland. = acceptable, not ideal; we have just repeated the verb; if (D) were absent, this could be an OA on an official question, because sometimes an OA is acceptable, basically correct, but not ideal.

3) ... what those did outside the pineland. = yuck! Now, we have taken an action, a verb, and congealed it into a noun phrase, "what those did." First of all, changing a verb to an individual noun makes a sentence more wordy and less direct; see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/active-verbs-on-the-gmat/
Changing a verb to a noun phrase is even worse ---- even wordier, and even more indirect. Furthermore, we are now violating parallelism in the comparison --- we are no longer comparing verb-action to verb-action; we are now comparing verb-action to a noun-phrase about an action. This is double-whammy bad. You would think that we couldn't possibly make an answer worse than this, but .....

4) ... what they did outside the pineland. = this has everything that was wrong with #3, but as a topper, it also has the subtle pronoun mistake I discussed in the previous post, personal pronoun rather than demonstrative pronoun --- that's a like an extra "garnish" mistake, on top of all the other mistakes. This is (E), which is really a virtuoso display of how bad an answer can be and still appear plausible to some test takers. The folks at GMAC pride themselves on making these incorrect answer choices that are as flawed as possible, and yet still believable enough that some people select them.

So (E), in its current form, is a unholy disaster, a spectacularly flawed answer choice. You asked: "what minimal changes would have fixed it?" That's like asking what three easy steps would make diphtheria a pleasant experience!!! It's a completely absurd question!! More to the point, it is the absolute wrong question for you to ask. You need to ask yourself: what steps do you need to take, in your own studies, so that when an SC answer choice is as flamboyantly incorrect as (E) is here, you recognize it instantly and without hesitation? What step do you need to take so that you can advance toward SC mastery, so that obviously flawed answer such as this pose absolutely no obstacle for you? That's where your focus need to be, not on jiggering hopeless answers in an attempt to improve them.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Hi GMATNinja,

I am not a native speaker. Please excuse me if you find my question dumb, but I am not finding the above sentence weird at all. Will you please elaborate a bit more ?

To confirm "land values in most parts of the pinelands rose… even faster than [land values rose] outside the pinelands." Is this sentence correct grammatically ?
if yes , how is "What" changing the meaning or making the sentence weird.
If no, What's wrong with this (without "what") sentence ?

Though I was able to guess the right ans , I want to be sure about my selection (as you mentioned )

Please help me !!!

Thanks
Teja

Good question, Teja! It's funny, the same issue came up on this Verbal Guide question about the gyrfalcon. So I'll borrow a little bit from my post on that thread.

Here's the phrase from (A) again, with "they" and "did" replaced by their referents, "land values" and "rose":

“...land values in most parts of the pinelands rose… even faster than what [land values rose] outside the pinelands.”

If we could remove the word "what", that sentence would be fine. But "what" is definitely a problem. When it's used as a pronoun in a non-question (technically, a relative pronoun if you like jargon), it's basically a singular phrase that means "the things that." So these two sentences (stolen from my post on the other thread) would be OK:

• "What I did after drinking 17 beers last night was regrettable." --> In other words, "the things that I did last night [were] regrettable." Grammatically, that works fine.
• "Mike couldn't believe what he saw on the beach in Chile." --> Mike couldn't believe "the things that he saw" on the beach. That also works fine.

So let's apply that to the question in this thread. Rewriting (A) again, replacing "what" with "the things that":

“...land values in most parts of the pinelands rose… even faster than [the things that] [land values rose] outside the pinelands.”

Pretty bad, right?

I hope this helps!
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I have one doubt :

Correct Answer: Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as, and in some parts even faster than, those outside the pinelands.

Doubt :
Here we have ',and' before 'in some parts'. According to MGMAT SC we use ',and' when we have list of items or we have two clauses connected by 'and'. But here it performs neither of the two functions.
So what is ,and doing here? Someone please explain ?

Hello sunitagitu,

I will be glad to help you with this one.

In the correct answer choice of this sentence, the phrase and in some parts even faster than is added information that has been inserted between the expression as fast as those outside the pinelands.

This added information has been enclosed between two commas - the comma before and and the comma after than. The sentence intends to say the following:

Land values in most part of the pinelands rose almost as fast as those outside the pinelands. Land values in some part of the pinelands rose even faster than those outside the pinelands.

The idiom faster than has been inserted between the as fast as idiom to convey the intended meaning.

If we remove this added information from the sentence, the two commas will also disappear. So the comma before and does not really belong to and. The comma pair has been used to enclose an added information that starts with and.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Dear GMATNinja,

Thanks for the wonderful explanation.
I am convinced with option D as correct answer. I have a doubt regarding meaning of this sentence. Land values in most parts of pinelands rose as fast as land values (rose) outside the pinelands. Rose is ellipsis used. Kindly correct if I am wrong

Complete sentence is as below:
Last year, land values in most parts of the pinelands rose almost as fast as, and in some parts even faster than, those (Land Values) (rose-ellipsis) outside the pinelands.

Thanks in advance





egmat

Your understanding looks correct to me. Just make sure that your focus is less on terminology and more on logic and structure. During the exam, the answer to the question "is this an instance of an ellipsis?" is far less likely to be useful than the answer to "does this sentence clearly convey a logical meaning?"

Otherwise, nice work!
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answer D =why "AND" break the rule and come without clause ? it is hard to recognize because most of time AND is conjunction and cause sentence wrong ! why GMAT design such question ?
or better question is " why do not use appositive and absolute phrase" ? adding information with conjunction without clause make me crying ! please help
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If you're asking why it's acceptable to have COMMA + AND, without following that construction with an independent clause, the answer is that there are very few absolute rules when it comes to comma usage. Any time we're including a modifier that isn't crucial to the meaning of the sentence, it's acceptable to set that modifier off with commas, even if there's a conjunction within it. For example:

"Early each morning, and sometimes late at night, Tim's infant screams so loudly that he considers drowning his sorrows in grain alcohol." (Don't do it, Tim!)

In this case, "and sometimes late at night" is an incidental modifier, and so it's fine to set it off with commas, despite the fact that it isn't an independent clause.

The takeaway: try to avoid using the presence or absence of a comma as a decision point! The only time you'd consider it is if the comma created a problematic or unclear meaning. Put another way, in these cases, logic is a much better guide than the rigid application of "rules."

I hope that helps!
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Can someone explain to me the difference between B and D?
I am not able to understand why "so fast" is wrong.

Why B is wrong?

Hi Nikita, when two entities are deemed to be equivalent, we use as.

For example:

Correct:

My brother earns as much as I do.

Peter runs as fast as Mike.

Incorrect:

My brother earns so much as I do.

Peter runs so fast as Mike.

You could call it an idiomatic issue.

Also, so + adjective (for example, so fast in the sentence under consideration) is generally used to depict a cause and effect.

For example, following would be correct:

Land values in most parts of the Pinelands rose so fast that the land prices became un-affordable.

Cause: Land values in most parts of the Pinelands rose so fast

Effect: the land prices became un-affordable.

Since there is no explicit cause and effect stated in the sentence under consideration, so fast would be an incorrect usage.
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Hi GMATNinja mikemcgarry and other experts.

Why is 'those' in option D referring only to land values and not the whole 'land values in most parts of the pineland' ? How do we make this distinction ?

Thanks.