An investigative reporter for the New York Times found that minority

I couldn't understand the role of 'did' in the OA; please explain...

Dear PiyushK & neoB,

I'm happy to help.

First of all, I am going to chastise both of you. If this grammatical form sounds unnatural to you, that means you are not reading enough. The only way all the sophisticated grammatical forms on the GMAT will sound natural to you is if you are reading, every day, at least half an hour a day over and above any GMAT prep. Here are some suggestions about what you should be reading:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-reading-list/
The more your read, the more natural all of this will sound.

As you probably know, in comparisons and in parallelism in general, it is not necessary to repeat all the words --- words that would be repeated are omitted. That's very easy for things such as nouns & prepositional phrases & so forth, but what if the verb would be repeated? The verb "to do" is the universal "substitute" verb that can fill in as a replacement for the repetition of any other verb. More than than, if the verb is followed by a long phrase (direct object, verb modifiers, etc.), then that entire verb phrase can be abbreviated by the words "do so". See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/repeating- ... -the-gmat/

I bought a new car before my friend could do so.
She plays piano better than I do.

In those sentences, the green words at the end are "substitutes" that take the place of the verb or verb phrase that would have been repeated.

Does this make sense?
Mike

Thanks for the explanation...
But, I wanted to mean that I think there should be 'had' instead of 'did'.
I mean wouldn't "An investigative reporter xxxxx that minority applicants xxxxx had a significantly greater chance of rejection than had white applicants with similar profiles" sound better?

Dear Santi1,
Believe it or not, that is not correct, and in fact, sounds awkward. This is one of these examples of the rules of language not following logic. Logically, it certainly seems that "had" would be the better choice, but that's not how English works, and not what the GMAT expects.
Does this make sense?
Mike

Thanks Mike,

In your examples do is representing some action like "bought a new car" or "plays piano", which I can relate with first half of the sentence without any problem, but in this sentence "minority applicants had a significantly greater chance of rejection than did white applicants with similar profiles." I am not able to identify the action replaced by did and who is the do'er of that action, bcz minority applicants are also not doing any action, we are just stating that "had greater chance of rejection", overall we are comparing here (statements) chances of rejection of minority applicant and white applicant, and it looks like that did is replacing a statement, not any action in the second half of the comparison.

"minority applicants had a significantly greater chance of rejection than did white applicants with similar profiles."

Thanks

Dear PiyushK,

Start with
Minority applicants had a high chance of rejection.
In that sentence "minority applicants" are the "actor", but it's not really much of an action. The action "to have a high chance of rejection" is funny because, even though the verb "have" is active, the sense of the entire phrase is passive. If I "have a high chance of rejection", then the paradox is --- logically & contextually, I am much more on the "receiving" end of things, not the "doing" end, but the verb "have" is grammatically an active verb.
Now, let's add on:
Minority applicants had a high chance of rejection.
White applicants with similar profiles had a high chance of rejection.
That's two facts, side by side, with no comparison. Now, toss in comparative words:
Minority applicants had a significantly greater chance of rejection.
White applicants with similar profiles had a significantly lower chance of rejection.
Now, combine those two into one sentence:
Minority applicants had a significantly greater chance of rejection than the chance of rejection that white applicants with similar profiles had.
That sentence is a distended disaster that should be take out back and shot. Let's shorten that by dropping repeated words and the logical connectors these repeated words imply --- everything underlined.
Minority applicants had a significantly greater chance of rejection than did white applicants with similar profiles.
The repeated verb "had" is replaced by the generic substitute "did".

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Thanks Mike, now I can digest it.

A recent review of pay scales indicates that CEO's now earn an average of 419 times more pay than blue-collar workers, compared to a ratio of 42 times in 1980.

(A) that CEO's now earn an average of 419 times more pay than blue-collar workers, compared to a ratio of 42 times

(B) that, on average, CEO's now earn 419 times the pay of blue-collar workers, a ratio that compares to 42 times

(C) that, on average, CEO's now earn 419 times the pay of blue-collar workers, as compared to 42 times their pay, the ratio

(D) CEO's who now earn on average 419 times more pay than blue-collar workers, as compared to 42 times their pay, the ratio

(E) CEO's now earning an average of 419 times the pay of blue-collar workers, compared to the ratio of 42 times

when the second verb in the second part of comparison is the same as verb in the first part, do/did can be omitted. you can see many official answers show this case.

but this problem shows that gmat PREFER keeping do/did.

remember that the second part without do/did can be in official answer.

An investigative reporter for the New York Times found that minority applicants for spaces in exclusive co-op apartment buildings had a significantly greater chance of rejection than did white applicants with similar profiles.

Meaning Analysis: A reporter from NY times found that applicants that fall in the minority category who apply for a housing space in apartment buildings had a higher chance of getting rejected than white applicants who share the same profile.

Sentence Structure:
An investigative reporter (subject)(here "investigative" is an adjective modifying "reporter")
for the New York Times (prepositional phrase modifying "reporter")
found (verb)
that (connector)
minority applicants (subject)[color=#f26c4f] (element 1 of comparison)[/color] ("minority" is an adjective modifying "applicants")
for spaces in exclusive co-op apartment buildings (prepositional phrase modifying "applicants")
had (verb) (notice that "had" is used as a verb and not as a helping verb thus it is a simple past tense and not a past perfect tense)
a higher chance (object of the sentence) (higher is the beginning of a comparison marker)
of getting rejected (prepositional phrase modifying "chance")
than(end of comparison marker "higher... than")
did (verb)
white applicants (subject) (element 2 of comparison)
with similar profiles (prepositional phrase modifying "applicants")


Greater... than is the correct comparison marker. The second element of the comparison is "white applicants" and the placement of the verb "did" before it is completely fine. This is a case in which the subject and the verb are inverted.


Greater... in comparison with is an incorrect comparison marker. We can either say "greater... than" or "in comparison with" BUT we cannot say "greater... in comparison with"


"Greater... than" is the correct comparison and not "great...than". Moreover the structure "of a rejection more significant" makes this sentence structure inferior.


"Better...than" is the correct comparison and not "Better... as compared to" Moreover, "Greater... than" would be a preferred comparison marker than "Better... than"


The comparison seems fine out here. However, the demonstrative pronoun "those" is unnecessary as it seems to refer to a specific group of "white applicants" and not all "white applicants who share the same profile with the minority". The usage of "those" changes the meaning a bit.

Correct Choice: (A)

An investigative reporter for the New York Times found that minority applicants for spaces in exclusive co-op apartment buildings had a significantly greater chance of rejection than did white applicants with similar profiles.

eliminate D AND C , for awkwardness and usage of better or likelihood is incorrect

eliminate E as those refers to minority applicants so meaning issue

A and B has the same meaning

but A is shorter and conveys the meaning in a clearer format so eliminate b

GMATNinja

Hello experts!

In option A, what is "did" referring back to? Is it "chance of rejection"?

Could you please explain what did is referring to and if it's replaced with the action it's referring to how the sentence would read.

Thanks!

did is referring to had.

I have a doubt regarding this:
Ex: She plays better piano than they do. (If in this sentence we can use "Do" or "Do" cannot refer back to verb "plays" in this as "do" is plural verb here. )

Please help
Due Regards