Harshgmat wrote:
Harshgmat ,
gmatdordie , and
martinod20 This question is not official.The source of the question is Knewton- and it is at least 14 years old. In the course of extensive research that I did a few weeks ago, I found that this topic question is from
2005. The "compare to/with" issue crops up repeatedly and understandably concerns GMAT aspirants.
daagh , upthread, is correct.
The GMAT does not test compare to and compare with.See
GMATNinja , for example, in
this post, here.
Another expert, Payal from
egmat , wrote:
Quote:
I have not found any question in OG12 that tests this usage. In fact there are two questions in OG12 that use the word "compared".
1: In Q123, "compared to" is used in 3 choices (all incorrect for some other reasons).
2: In Q131, one choice uses "compared to" and the other uses "compared with." Both options are incorrect.
Neither explanation mentions any distinction.
Thus as other posters have mentioned above, as of now, GMAC does not test the difference between "compared to" and "compared with".
Thanks,
Payal
HERE.
Manhattan Prep GMAT Sentence Correction:
Quote:
"Note: the GMAT ignores the traditional distinction between COMPARED TO [] and COMPARED WITH []."
Page 223, 6th edition (2014).
RonPurewal :
Quote:
"Compared to" and "compared with" are completely interchangeable [on the GMAT].
That post is from 2014.
You can find that direct quote
here.In the excellent
Magoosh Complete Guide to GMAT Idioms that can be downloaded from a link HERE , idiomatic usage of
compare is addressed this way:
Quote:
compare A to B
compare to
compared to (or compared with)
in contrast to A, B
Here are some exemplary sentences to demonstrate proper usage.
17) Compared to/with California, New Jersey has a relatively small coast.
18) Compared to/with other writers of the early 20th century, James Joyce may seem to have
produced a limited output, if one judges purely by number of books.
In the downloaded pdf file, that material comes from page 12 of 101 pages.
Finally,
EducationAisle advises us to steer clear of trying to use the distinction when solving SCs. His post is
here.
The one and only question I have seen that seems to test the issue is THIRTY years old.
In every OG from OG 13 (that version is the earliest I possess) to OG 2019 , the Verbal Reviews, and every official GMAT Prep question I could find—
(I ran this search a month ago, on October 22, because I saw a post that asserted what I see here)—
not one question tests that difference.I don't have my research in front of me but I can confirm that
egmat 's assertion holds for
EVERY official volume of questions published since
OG 13 and for every other official question I could find.
I think I found three questions in which the phrases were used in different answer choices.
There was absolutely no mention of the distinction in the OEs.
The correct answer had nothing to do with
the distinction.
The correct answer could not have been found by knowing the distinction.
For those who assert that the distinction is still tested, please produce an example of an official question
from the last 10 years that tests the distinction.
Maybe then there will be a basis for this assertion.
At that point,
GMATNinja ,
RonPurewal egmat and the authors
Manhattan Prep Sentence Correction Guide would probably have to consider what to do or to say about their statements.
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