The country’s Commerce secretary says that spending on fuel subsidies

Hi,
Can you kindly explain the redundancy of the word 'in' in option A. Had the sentence be that spending on fuel subsidies could reach $40 billion dollars in 2013, compared with about $20 billion in 2012, would that be correct.

Yes, it would be correct - it is not about redundancy, but about the standard practice of NOT using "in" with "last year" / "next year".

I went there last year... correct
I went there in 2016... correct
I went there in last year... wrong
I went there 2016... wrong

Hii, Can somebody post the officia solution by Veritas because it will help to better analyze errors

Solution: C

Explanation: In this problem, the choice between “compared with” and “compared to” may stick out, but it is not the type of decision point that you should focus on. Typically, “compared with” is used to show differences (as in this case) and “compared to” is used to emphasize similarities. More importantly, you need to focus on whether the comparison is logical and structurally correct. The goal is simply to compare the amount in 2013 with the amount last year. First, you cannot say “$20 billion in last year” in (A) and (D) as that is illogical and should be “$20 billion last year”. In (B) and (E) there is a reference error with “that” – what is the “that” referring to – it is not clear and creates an imprecise and illogical comparison. Answer is (C).

A simple way to quickly answer this question correctly:

'Compared with' is used to compare things similar to each other - Money compared with money
'Compared to' is used to compare things that are different to each other

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Hii Experts,
As I have seen wordiness is very rare reason to eliminate answer choice.It is mostly logical or grammatical error. I am not able to eliminate option A() and (C). There is extra in A. I don't understand why c is better than a

Bunuel

pls change option A.

_____________________
Fixed that. Thank you.

Comparison is between 40 billion and 20 billion
C is more crisp in providing intended meaning using few words as compared to D

How do we know when to use "compare to" vs "compare with"

When Similar things are compared we use Compare with
When unlike things are compared we use compare to

Here we r comparing billion dollars with billion dollars so used compare with

A and B should not have included ‘that’ , as they are using ‘spending’ as a noun, not verb.

In D ‘reached in last year’ is missing a ‘the’ after ‘in’. Soits wrong

‘and that is’ is not right in this context, so E is wrong.



This leaves us with C as the right answer.

veritas offer many good questions and is now going to the top of quality. but I dont like this question. concison is seldom the only reason to eliminate a choice

Official explanation
Solution: C
Explanation: In this problem, the choice between “compared with” and “compared to” may stick out, but it is not the type of decision point that you should focus on. Typically, “compared with” is used to show differences (as in this case) and “compared to” is used to emphasize similarities. More importantly, you need to focus on whether the comparison is logical and structurally correct. The goal is simply to compare the amount in 2013 with the amount last year. First, you cannot say “$20 billion in last year” in (A) and (D) as that is illogical and should be “$20 billion last year”. In (B) and (E) there is a reference error with “that” – what is the “that” referring to – it is not clear and creates an imprecise and illogical comparison. Answer is (C).

In option C, can someone please tell me if the line 'compared with about $20 billion last year' is correct in terms of the meaning?

What does 'last year' refer to? Shouldn't there be a preposition between '$20 billion' and 'last year'? Say for example - Compared with about $20 billion that was reached last year

It's between A and C.

A has "$20 billion in last year." The 'in' is unidiomatic.

C is the better choice. However, I think 'that' should have been included in choice C.

Can experts opine?

It would be better to have 'THAT' after 'SAYS'. The GMAT usually prefers to have a 'THAT'.

But it is not wrong or unidiomatic to drop the 'THAT'. It's just more informal.

As you said, 'IN LAST YEAR' is definitely wrong: unidiomatic, non-standard, ungrammatical, ...

Hope that helps

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