Dear radi,
I am happy to respond. The short answer is: yes! A verb can come after "as many as," precisely because words have been omitted in the parallel structure.

Here's version (E) with all the extra words:
A booming population center, the Asian continent is home to over 3.5 billion people, about as many as the people who reside in all the other areas of the world combined.
As many people as people --- that's a logical correct comparison, but phrasing it this way is wordy and awkward. In parallelism, we can drop repeated or implied words in the second branch. That gives us the true version of (E), the OA:
A booming population center, the Asian continent is home to over 3.5 billion people, about as many as reside in all the other areas of the world combined.
Recognizing what has been dropped legitimately from the second branch of parallelism is one of the hardest things to appreciate about parallelism. See this blog:
http://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/dropping-c ... -the-gmat/

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test Prep


Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)

PTK what is "Drive your VAN" Rule?

In A and B, equivalent does not convey the intended meaning. EQUIVALENT means "of equal value". We cannot say that 3.5 billion people are "of equal value" to another group of people. Eliminate A and B.

In C, we cannot say that 3.5 BILLION PEOPLE are equal to THOSE who reside in all the other areas of the world. The PEOPLE themselves are not equal; the NUMBER of people is equal. Eliminate C.

In D, as is used to compare actions, but it is not clear what action is being performed by the residents of all the other areas of the world. Eliminate D.

HTH
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A booming population center, the Asian continent is home to over 3.5 billion people, about equivalent to the residents of all the other areas of the world combined.
(a) equivalent to the residents of
(b) the equivalent of those residing in
(c) equal to those who reside in
(d) as many as the residents of
(e) as many as reside in


I want to add something coming to options D and E.
people reside in means they live in, occupy or inhabit
residents of-means that "A person who lives somewhere permanently or on a long-term basis"( as per Oxford dic)

sample sentences
Citizens or permanent residents of other countries must have a valid passport and/or a valid visitor's visa.
The majority of the permanent residents are retired ‘incomers’ devoted to growing their own vegetables and etching.
Only four of the 10 houses on the street are now owned by long-term residents.

And this sentence compares the population(people who currently stay in) of Asian continent and that of other areas of the world combined.
So E is preferred.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dear thangvietnam,
I'm happy to respond. You and many others on this thread have asked about this.

This is not the highest quality SC question. Veritas usually writes high quality questions, but this one is shakier.

You see, on a true GMAT SC question, there is one right answer, and each of the four incorrect answers are wrong for some unambiguously obvious reason. Even the tempting wrong answers on the GMAT are clearly wrong.

On this problem, that is not the case. In this question, both (D) and (E) are grammatically correct. (E) is shorter, more elegant, so it is better answer, but I entirely agree that (D) is not "wrong enough" --- in this way, this SC question falls short of the high standards of the GMAT. Also, the "equal/equivalent" thing does not strike me as particularly GMAT like.

Now, here's the really important thing for you to appreciate. Focusing on the aspects of any question that are not GMAT like will in no way prepare you for the GMAT. This question is one that has fallen short of the GMAT standards, because as an incorrect answer, (D) is not "wrong enough," not as discernibly wrong as an incorrect choice would be on the GMAT. This is the non-GMAT-like part of this question. Focusing on this will not help you at all.

The OA of this question is an incredibly elegant and well-written sentence: it's very much work understanding that. It is certainly worthwhile understanding the parallelism necessary for a well-constructed comparison. Don't be troubled by the aspects of a flawed question that are not GMAT-like.

Do not naively assume that every company that puts something out and calls it a "practice GMAT SC question" has automatically ensured that the quality of the question is up to the GMAT's lofty standards. It is VERY VERY hard to write questions that are as rigorous as those of the GMAT itself, and many companies regularly fall short. Even a very good company, such as Veritas, doesn't hit the mark every time. It's important to appreciate how hard it is to write a question that conforms to these standards, and to be correspondingly suspicious of the quality of each new question you encounter. You can't afford to be naive as a GMAT aspirant, just as you can't afford to be naive in the business world.

Here's a high quality question:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3284

Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________

Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test Prep


Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

This is an interesting question that points out the importance of proper comparisons. The logical meaning of this sentence is that the number of people in Asia is equal to the number of people in the rest of the world. The word “equivalent” or even “equal” does not clearly mean numerically equivalent. I could use it in the sentence “Three NBA players would be the equivalent of six college players.” This is the problem with answer choice A. It indicates that the people in Asia are “about equivalent to the residents of all the other areas of the world.” This could mean qualitatively equivalent as in they have the equivalent “brainpower” of the rest of the world. Choices A, B, and C all suffer from this ambiguity.

Choice D and E use the more specific phrase “as many as” this clearly indicates a numerical equivalency and is preferred. Choice E is shorter, more direct and conveys the comparison accurately. 3.5 billion people is “about as many as reside in the rest of the world.” Choice D has a subtle but significant comparison error - the number isn't as many as "the residents" but rather "the number of residents". Choice E performs this comparison correctly and therefore is the correct answer.
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