honchos wrote:
A recent study, published by the California Bureau of Employment, found that people who sent in resumes with “ethnic-sounding” names had a much more difficult time getting called back from employers as people who sent in resumes showing similar qualifications but “white-sounding” names.
(A) employers as people who sent in resumes showing similar qualifications but “white-sounding” names.
(B) employers as those who did send in resumes showing similar qualifications but with “white-sounding” names.
(C) employers than those who sent in resumes showing similar qualifications but “white-sounding” names.
(D) employers than those who did send in resumes showing similar qualifications but with “white-sounding” names.
(E) employers than people did who sent in resumes showing similar qualifications but with “white-sounding” names.
Dear
honchos,
I'm happy to help with this.
First of all, this question, a GMAT SC question, really show be posted in the Verbal/SC forum, not in the Ask GMAT Experts forum. We GMAT experts answer questions in all forums, and this one really is for those questions that do not fit into another category.
Second, when you post a SC question, please underline the section that is underlined in the question, as I have done above. This makes it much easier for the reader to understand.
I notice you attribute no source. The quality of GMAT SC varies widely with source. This one strikes me as a little questionable.
Clearly, we are doing a comparison, so it should "
more difficult.... than", not "
more difficult.... as", so clearly
(A) &
(B) are out.
The reason for rejecting
(D) is valid. The "
people" after the word "
than" are a subject parallel to the "
people who sent" subject earlier in the sentence. This needs a verb ---- either "
than people did who ..." or "
that did people who ..." Dropping this verb is casual --- it would pass in colloquial English, but it's a bit too informal for the GMAT. Choice
(D) illogically puts the "
did" after "
who" --- this creates emphasis on ones who sent a resume, as opposed to ones who didn't, but that's not the emphasis the sentence is discussing. Because of both casualness and the illogical implication, (D) is atrocious and wrong.
I agree, though, that
(C) is quite debatable. I get that they want to argue that "
with “white-sounding” names" should be parallel with "
with “ethnic-sounding” names", but
the construction is totally different!! In one case, the people "
sent in resumes with “ethnic-sounding” names", but in the other case, we have "
resumes showing similar qualifications but “white-sounding” names". That latter construction is 100% grammatically correct on its own, and because the rest of the sentence doesn't follow the same construction, it's hard to make the argument that these two particular pieces need to be in parallel.
While
(E) is grammatically correct, I would argue that
(C) is also grammatically correct. I would recommend that you take this as an indication to question the quality of the source from which you took the question.
Mike