woohoo921 wrote:
GMATNinja wrote:
SS18, if you're being really strict and literal with the meaning here, (A) and (C) are both just a little bit illogical.
In (C), the clearest issue is that the verb tense is a little bit off. "... the more coffee the doctors drank, the more they would have a likelihood to have coronary disease." One problem is "would have" -- the phrase conditional, which doesn't make much sense here. We're looking at facts of a study: "the more x occurred, the more y occurred". Since these are facts, it wouldn't make sense to say: "the more x occurred, the more y would have occurred." There's simply no need to make the second part of the phrase conditional.
In (A), it doesn't make much sense to say "the more they had a likelihood." It makes sense to talk about the degree to which something is likely to occur: "a higher likelihood" or "a greater likelihood." But this is subtly different: (A) is saying "the more they had a likelihood" -- which seems to express "likelihood" as a binary thing, that you either have or you don't -- so now (A) seems to say that the more the physicians drank, the higher the odds of having a likelihood. And that doesn't make much sense. (C) suffers from the same problem, too.
I hope this helps!
GMATNinjaThank you for your helpful reply, as always. I am still a little confused on the using greater than vs. more than after seeing an example mentioned in another GMAT form that said, "if you are dealing with an uncountable noun that is NOT a numerical quantity, then you should use the word more" and then cited a correct example of this usage, "there is more furniture in this store than in the other one".
Could you please explain the exact rules between using greater vs. more? I understand that there are exceptions to every rule, but I would be so appreciative to learn of what is crucial to know from your perspective to be become a ninja on SC. Thank you again.
I am also a bit confused on another response mentioned above in this form:
"more = countable objects / uncountable things that increase
The longer you study for your exams, the more pencils you'll need to sharpen to take notes.
My youngest child has more temper tantrums than her older sister.
(Both pencils and temper tantrums are items you can count.)
greater = nouns that are acting as, or taking the place of, a number (area, price, volume, distance, percentage, likelihood, chances, etc.)
The area of Australia is greater than that of Texas.
(The area of Australia is a number - square kilometers, acres, square miles, etc. They just don't tell us the exact number in the sentence.)
The percentage of teenagers who fail their first driver's test is greater than those who pass.
(A percentage is always a number...they just don't tell us the exact number in the sentence.)"
When this user says that "the just don't tell us the exact number in the sentence", the examples provided for the use of "more" also do not provide the exact number in the sentence... what does this user mean?
I wouldn't devote too much brain space to this issue. Generally, if something is countable, it means that, in theory, you could have known the precise number of some element, even if it isn't explicitly mentioned. If Tim ate
more tacos than Stephanie, we don't need to be told that Tim ate 17 tacos. It's enough to see that tacos are a countable entity.
Similarly, if Tim experienced
greater indigestion than Stephanie, there's clearly nothing to count here, right?
Beyond that, I wouldn't worry too much about this. "More" can be used for uncountable things as well. Tim's kids can be
more of a headache than Daphne's kids. And "greater" can, in theory, be applied to numbers. 9 is
greater than 7, for instance, even though 9 cars is
more than 7 cars. Is it worth memorizing every possible scenario? Nope.
So if a construction is obviously wrong, great -- you can treat it as a concrete error. If you're unsure? Use other decision points.
I hope that helps!
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28 Oct 2021, 23:45
