According to a survey of graduating university students conducted by t

According to a survey of graduating university students conducted by the International Association of Rose Vendors, MBA graduates are nearly five times more likely than are other graduates in planning to present roses to their partners on Valentine’s Day.
(A) MBA graduates are nearly five times more likely than are other graduates in planning to present-
Incorrect comparison as this option compares a Noun "MBA graduates" with a clause "Are other graduates". Moreover use of comparison indicator More .....than is inappropriate in this sentence.

(B) MBA graduates are nearly five times more likely than other graduates who plan on presenting-
Use of comparison indicator More .....than is inappropriate in this sentence. Moreover the sentence means that MBA graduates are 5 times more likely than Other Graduates. because "who plan on.......day" is a modifier.

(C) MBA graduates are nearly five times as likely as other graduates to plan on presenting - CORRECT

(D) it is nearly five times more likely that MBA graduates rather than other graduates will plan to present-
Use of incomplete comparison indicator "More" is incorrect in this sentence. Moreover two markers are used (More, Rather Than)

(E) it is nearly five times as likely for MBA graduates than other graduates to plan to present -
Correct comparison marker is "as likely ......as" (as far as this option is concerned) instead of "As likely..than"

So the Correct answer has to be C.

Hope this detailed explanation helps
(Kindly express appreciation by pressing KUDOS button)
Fame

Updating the post with OA and OE.


The question is about comparisons and grammatically both "more likely than" and "as likely as" will be correct.
The correct idiom is "A is more likely than B to plan/ do etc. (something)", "in planning" is incorrect

If a choice would have been correct if it were " MBA graduates are five times more likely than other graduates to plan on presenting"

(A) MBA graduates are nearly five times more likely than are other graduates in planning to present

"in planning is" unidiomatic and "MBA graduates" are incorrectly being compared with "are other graduates"

(B) MBA graduates are nearly five times more likely than other graduates who plan on presenting

again incorrect comparison is being made between "MBA graduates" and "other graduates who plan". The relative clause starting with "who" is only modifying "other graduates" and not "MBA graduates".

(C) MBA graduates are nearly five times as likely as other graduates to plan on presenting

This choice is correct; the meaning is clear and the construction is idiomatic and concise.

(D) it is nearly five times more likely that MBA graduates rather than other graduates will plan to present

"it' is an ambiguous pronoun; moreover, only one of "more likely" and "rather than" is required; this creates redundancy.

(E) it is nearly five times as likely for MBA graduates than other graduates to plan to present

This choice has the same error as choice (D). "to plan to present" is less preferred than "to plan on presenting" and the comparison "as likely --- than" is incorrect.
_________________

Yes, i will also go with C

A) than are is incorrect
B) This choice lacks verb and hence does not form a sentence.
C) To plan on presenting…. Correct structure
D) rather may be problamatic here. Incorrect structure. Correct structure is five time as likely for x as for y to present .......
E) incorrect comparison five times as likely for x than y correct usage is five times as likely for x as for y

Regard,

Abhijit

In my opinion C is the right answer.
A > more likely than are other graduates (wrong)
B >is wrong because of "who plan on presenting". This make the comparison improper.
C >correct. X (is/are) as likely as Y to plan on presenting. This is the right construction
D&E > "it is nearly five times more likely". Wrong construction.

I understand that noun is being compared with a clause which is wrong.
But can someone explain me what is the wrong usage of comparison indicator More .....than in the option A.

idiomatic constructions can be used:

As Likely As

X more than Y; X and Y must be parallel...

X rather than Y; X and Y must be parallel...

Plan to

Likely to

Can someone please explain - is 'as likely as' = 'more likely than'? I thought they differ in meaning...Please help!

It might be better written as below:

MBA graduates are nearly five times as likely as other graduates ARE to plan on presenting.

Feedback are well accepted.

Matt

A can be eliminated, ‘in planning to’ is not idiomatic. B can also be eliminated, due to a comparison error. Here, the noun ‘MBA graduates’ is being compared with the clause ‘other graduates who plan’. The problem with option D is that that pronoun ‘its’ is ambiguous. It is not clear what antecedent of ‘it’ is. E doesn’t have any major errors that I can see but the phrase ‘to plan to present’ is awkward.



So, by PoE,C is the correct answer.

I agree,
The meaning is absolutley changed in (C).
The prompt establish that "MBA students are "..." more likely than other students" (I'm aware of the comparison error in (A))
On the other hand (C) establish that MBA students are "..." AS LIKELY AS other students... , so MBA students and other students are compare with what?... people in general?

Thank you for your comments.

Regards,
R

Remember that there's no rule stating that the correct answer has to match the meaning of A. A is wrong for other reasons, so who cares what it says? We might use A and other wrong choices to get a sense of what the author is trying to say, but in the end we just need a choice that makes sense!

Also, one could argue that the meaning of A is off anyway. What would "five times more likely" mean? 500% more, or 6x times as likely? Why say things in this confusing way? For instance, if event A had a 10% chance and event B had a 30% chance, would you really say that B is "twice more likely than A"? I don't think so. You'd say it is three times as likely. This is very different from saying that one is simply as likely as the other.
_________________

If Option A is modified like this after removing "are"

(A) MBA graduates are nearly five times more likely than other graduates in planning to present

Still is option A incorrect?
The comparison is still correct if we use "are". Is it?

Can anyone help me here to eliminate option A. generis GMATNinja EMPOWERgmatVerbal

Thanks for asking Adambhau!

In short, no. Option A would still not be correct.

It is not idiomatic to say "in planning to present" here. The idioms we're dealing with are primarily these two:

X is as likely as Y to [verb]
X is more likely than Y to [verb]

Option A's structure, even if you get rid of the extra "are," follows this pattern: X is more likely than Y in [verb-ing]. That's not idiomatically correct, so we'd still have to choose C as the best option.

Hope that helps!
_________________

What if we think this way: "MBA graduates are" compared with a clause "Are other graduates". seems parallel

GMATNinja - is the comparison done in option A incorrect?
Mexico has more number of restaurants than does any other city (we repeat the verb right?)

Hey kittle

Happy to help you with this.

Yes, you are correct. The comparison is not at issue in choice A. The deterministic error in choice A is the idiomatic error "likely...in". The correct idiom is "likely...to plan".

Hope this helps.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek
_________________

Hello kittle,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, you are correct; there is no comparison error in Option A.

The error is in the use of the verb form "in planning"; remember, for referring to the intent/purpose of an action ("are likely" in this case) the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb" - "to + plan" in this case) is preferred over the present participle ("verb+ing").

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
_________________

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.
_________________