One of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more

Question

One  of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared with just one of six born  in 1975.

(A) of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared with just one of six born

(B) of four babies is now born to a mother whose age is thirty of older, compared to just one of six babies who were born

(C) baby in four are now born to mothers aged thirty or older, compared to just one in six

(D) baby in four is now born to a mother aged thirty or older, compared with just one in six

(E) baby in four is now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared to just one in six

Gonaives · Accepted Answer

The rule for 'compared to' vs. 'compared with':

Compare to - is used to liken two things or to put them in the same category. You should use "compare to" when you intend to simply assert that two things are alike.Use "compared to" to illustrate that two things are similar

e.g -

1). The economy can be compared to a stallion charging at the gate.
2). I compare getting comments from students in class to pulling teeth.
3). She compared her work for women's rights to Susan B. Anthony's campaign for women's suffrage.

Compare with - is used to place two things side by side for the purpose of examining their similarities or differences. Use "compared with" to illustrate the differences a comparison draws

e.g -

1). The American economy can be compared with the European economy to note how military history impacts future economics.
2). It would be interesting to compare Purdue with Ohio State.
3). Ann has a 3.5 GPA, compared with Jim's 2.9.

Source: https://gmat-grammar.blogspot.com/2006/0 ... -with.html

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

The right answer here is  D . The most common explanation given is the difference between 'compared with' and 'compared to' and while this is correct, lets see if we can solve this question without having to resort to this admittedly complex rule.

Firstly, whether we use "One of four/six babies" or "One baby in four/six", the idea is still a singular one. Immediately this  eliminates A, C ("are now born"), as well as B ("who were born") .

Secondly, a baby can only be born to a mother, not a category of "mothers aged thirty....". Hence, we can  eliminate E  as well.

We're now just left with D, the correct answer.

Remember that there are usually multiple routes to the right answer, and if you keep your wits about you, you will be able to find one of them!

- Matoo

lakersgo · Answer

Compare with 
Compare to

I think I saw this in Kaplan verbal workbook....can anyone shed light over here?

neitzsche · Answer

compared with is right. The comparison is between two groups of women, one older than 30 and the other younger. So D is right.

vineetgupta · Answer

'compared to' is wrong in this case...comparing like things so use 'compar e with'.
One in four  is 

D it is.

bmwhype2 · Answer

compare similar nouns with  compare with . Therefore, AD remain. 

 A  is wrong because thirty years or  more. More  describes uncountable things like pollution.  More or less pollution.

noboru · Answer

GMAT does not distinguish between compare to/with anymore.

daagh · Answer

The problem with B is that for the first arm of one it uses singular verb ‘ is ’ and for the second arm of one it uses ‘ were ’.

plumber250 · Answer

Hi,

The way I distinguish is whether things are 'versions' or 'totally different'

e.g.

Compared to a brick, a car is very large

Compared with Picasso, Monet is not much of an artist

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

James

purevsurenn · Answer

7. One of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared with just one of six born in 1975.
(A) of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared with just one of six born
(B) of four babies is now born to a mother whose age is thirty or older, compared to just one of six babies who were born
(C) baby in four are now born to mothers aged thirty or older, compared to just one in six
(D) baby in four is now born to a mother aged thirty or older, compared with just one in six
(E) baby in four is now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared to just one in six

For me D is best

Because: B & C are out S-V agreement. One of babies- subject is babies so plural, one baby in four-singular 
A & E are out 'More'. More must be used with than.

acarpio1 · Answer

D. Because you can't used aged and years in the same sentences as these both mean the same. D has the most logical meaning when compared to the other options, even if personally I still find it strangely worded.

RatneshS · Answer

One  of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared with just one of six born  in 1975.

(A) of four babies  are  now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared with just one of six born 
(B) of four babies is now born to a mother whose age is thirty  of older , compared to just one of six babies who were born 
(C) baby in four  are  now born to mothers aged thirty or older, compared to just one in six 
(D) baby in four is now born to a mother aged thirty or older, compared with just one in six ---best
(E) baby in four is now born to  mothers  aged thirty years or more, compared to just one in six-- 1 baby cannot be born to different mothers

compared to and compared with is not a valid elimination reason as both can be right depending on the situation

JMatic · Answer

One of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared with just one of six born in 1975. 
(A) of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared with just one of six born - more YEARS? 
(B) of four babies is now born to a mother whose age is thirty or older, compared to just one of six babies who were born - WORDY
(C) baby in four are now born to mothers aged thirty or older, compared to just one in six - S-V ERROR
(D) baby in four is now born to a mother aged thirty or older, compared with just one in six - CORRECT
(E) baby in four is now born to mothers aged thirty years or more, compared to just one in six - more YEARS?

Helium · Answer

We use “compared with” for similar objects and “compared to” for different.
Here “baby” is compared with “baby”. Therefore, “compared to” is incorrect.
Hence, B, C, and E are incorrect.
The sentence talks about “babies” being born to “one mother”. Therefore, “mothers”(plural) is incorrect. Hence, A, C, and E are incorrect.
D is the best choice.

sameeruce08 · Answer

is the ans e

compared to is better than compared with and one is indefinite pronoun can be applicable to mothers

abhi2707 · Answer

SVA--one in four is ......A and C out
one in four babies is born to a mother (and not mothers) C and E out
D is concise and best

Kritisood · Answer

(D) baby in four is now born to a mother aged thirty or older, compared with just one in six
(E) baby in four is now born to  mothers  aged thirty  years  or more, compared to just one in six

if you don't know the diff b/w the usage of the two idioms then use the following 2 reasons to eliminate E.

1.  mothers  cant be used with a singular subject  one baby . "one of four babies" 
2. aged thirty   years   is not needed. We are already talking about the age we don't need to mention  years  again.

hope this helps.

meenakshi143 · Answer

a. Subject verb agreement.
b. Illogical and awkward
c. Subject verb agreement
d. Correct
e. Redundancy ( aged and years)

ChiranjeevSingh · Answer

Here's the   official explanation   provided by the GMAC for this question:

This sentence compares the current proportion of babies born to mothers thirty or older with the proportion in 1975. Although the sentence is about many babies, the grammatical subject  one  followed by a prepositional modifier is singular and requires a singular verb form. Since presumably  thirty or older  is the age of the one who actually bears the child, each baby is, in this sense, born to only one mother, so  mother  must also be singular. The sentence must be worded appropriately to compare the current proportion of babies born to mothers thirty or older with the analogous proportion in 1975. When expressing a proportion, it is unidiomatic to use the construction  one of … ;  the idiomatic construction is  one in  … or  one out of….

Option A:  The grammatical subject  o  ne  is singular, and therefore not in agreement with the plural  are.  The word  years  is unnecessary. English typically does not include the word  years  in references to age except when the  years  is followed by  old  or  of age . And as worded, the sentence seems to absurdly compare the proportion of babies born to mothers thirty or older with the proportion of babies born in 1975. The construction  one of …  is unidiomatic when used to express a proportion. O ne of four babies  appears to refer to one member of a specific group of four babies instead of expressing a proportion.

Option B:  The phrase  whose age is  is unnecessarily wordy and results in the adjective  older  awkwardly modifying  age  rather than  mother . The words  who were  are also unnecessary. As worded, the sentence seems to absurdly compare just one of only six babies born in 1975 to the current proportion of babies born to mothers thirty or older, or perhaps to just one of only four babies being born now.

Option C:  The grammatical subject  o  ne baby  is singular, and therefore not in agreement with the plural  are.

Option D:  Correct. The singular grammatical subject  o  ne baby  agrees with the singular verb form  is.  The singular  mother  is also appropriate, since in the relevant sense any one baby is born to only one mother. The construction  one in …  is idiomatically correct. The sentence is appropriately worded to compare the current proportion of babies born to mothers thirty or older with the proportion in 1975.

Option E:  With the singular subject  one baby , the plural  mothers  makes no sense in context, since in the relevant sense any one baby is born to only one mother.

The correct answer is D.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

One of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

One of four babies are now born to mothers aged thirty years or more

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards