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A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof

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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  28 Oct 2021, 23:45
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tony1stark wrote:
GMATNinja wrote:
priyanshu14 wrote:

I am convinced with option D as right answer.
I have query regarding the use of "their" and "they" in the respective options. I feel that "they"/"their" has more than 1 antecedent- doctors and physicians.
So, correct answer should be "greater was doctors's likelihood of having coronary disease". Kindly clarify


Quote:
A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank, the more they had a likelihood of coronary disease.

A. more they had a likelihood of coronary disease
B. more was their likelihood of having coronary disease
C. more they would have a likelihood to have coronary disease
D. greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease
E. greater was coronary disease likely

For starters, pronoun ambiguity isn't an absolute rule on the GMAT.

More importantly, think about the meaning of the sentence in this case: "A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank..." The doctors ARE the physicians! So it really doesn't matter whether "their" (or "they") refers to "the doctors" or "the physicians" -- they're the same people anyway.

I hope this helps a bit!


I don't really get the position of "was" in choice D. Should it be the more coffee these doctors drank, the greater their likelihood of having coronary disease "was"?


Hello tony1stark,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe that we can help resolve your doubt.

The placement of "was" in Option D is not incorrect; at most, it is a somewhat passive construction, so this option is a bit less direct than it could have been. Nevertheless, Option D is still clearly the best answer choice. Remember, redundancy is not a deal-breaker on the GMAT; it should only be considered when deciding between otherwise error-free options.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  07 Dec 2021, 07:49
alphaseeker wrote:
DollySharma wrote:
LithiumIon wrote:
2016 GMAT Official Guide, Question 10, Pg. 675

A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank, the more they had a likelihood of coronary disease.

(A) more they had a likelihood of coronary disease
(B) more was their likelihood of having coronary disease
(C) more they would have a likelihood to have coronary disease
(D) greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease
(E) greater was coronary disease likely



Let's look at the structure here-

"the more coffee these doctors drank, more they had a likelihood of coronary disease

As the second part of the structure refers to 'likelihood', we need 'greater'. 'greater' is used when the noun is a number. For example: percentage, rate, likelihood, distance and population.

Also, 'likelihood' means 'the probability of a specified outcome'. Thus, it's imprecise to say they had a likelihood/probability of coronary disease. The correct usage should be "likelihood of having coronary disease'.

E goes out as it distorts the meaning. 'likelihood' was greater, NOT the disease.

This leaves us with D.


Happy Prepping! :D

Dolly Sharma



Although your answer is correct, some of your explanations are not accurate based on Manhattan GMAT book. GREATER is actually used for uncountable things, NUMEROUS or MORE NUMEROUS is used for countable items. Here "likelihood" is not countable. The likelihood of having coronary disease is higher for those who drink certain amount of coffee.

Pls check the MGMAT Sentence correction book, pg. 200. for greater details


More, most, enough and all - work with both countable and uncountable noun.

What to choose between?
A) He has more patience...
B) He has greater patience...
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  07 Dec 2021, 08:10
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Roy867 wrote:

More, most, enough and all - work with both countable and uncountable noun.

What to choose between?
A) He has more patience...
B) He has greater patience...


Hello Roy867,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, both A and B are perfectly acceptable options. A might be a shade superior, as it is slightly clearer, but it is unlikely that the GMAT will make such a subtle distinction the deciding factor between two answer choices.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  28 Mar 2022, 23:29
KarishmaB GMATNinja egmat BillyZ

Could you help me understand parallelism in this sentence. Shouldn't parallelism be followed in The more X, the more Y sentence structure where X and Y are parallel?
Correct option D : A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank, the greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease
Here noun coffee that doctors drank(that ellided) is parallel to clause their likelihood was.
How is this correct?
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  29 Mar 2022, 11:58
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waytowharton

First, these structures are a bit tricky to write in parallel, because the two things that are correlated aren't always easy to describe in the same way. We may have an easy one such as "The more I study, the more I learn." But what happens when I switch to "the greater"? I have to describe what actually becomes GREATER, and that's a noun, not a verb. So it turns into something a little clunkier, like this: "The more I study, the greater is my learning." In real-life usage, most of us would probably just cut "is" there and say "The more I study, the greater my learning" (or results, etc.). However, I'm not sure that would fly on the GMAT.

Now, what would happen if we added an extra word to our first part? "The more math I study." Does that change the whole structure of the sentence? Not really. "More" is still modifying the clause, not just the following noun (math). The same applies to the case you're asking about: "more" doesn't apply just to the noun "coffee," but to the action. It describes how much coffee people are drinking, not some property of the coffee itself. In the second part, we're describing a result. not a second thing the doctors did, so we are stuck with that weird inverted structure. In any case, now we have two clauses, so parallelism is intact!
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  29 Mar 2022, 21:25
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waytowharton wrote:
KarishmaB GMATNinja egmat BillyZ

Could you help me understand parallelism in this sentence. Shouldn't parallelism be followed in The more X, the more Y sentence structure where X and Y are parallel?
Correct option D : A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank, the greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease
Here noun coffee that doctors drank(that ellided) is parallel to clause their likelihood was.
How is this correct?


Don't try to put everything into neat packets. It just doesn't work that way with language. Different contexts will require different handling.
Normally our sentence structure is "they drank more coffee" but we need "the more coffee they drank" to put it into the "the more A happened, the more B happened" structure to show cause-effect. But instead of more, we have greater because likelihood is a numerical value which would be greater/higher than another.
Now we could say something like "the more coffee they drank, the greater the likelihood became..." to keep parallelism. But something like this is not in the options. So we look for what best is available.
Note that parallelism leads to a clean structure and hence is preferred in formal language. But we make do with as much parallelism as is available. If the elements are not completely aligned, the sentence does not become incorrect.
Yet again, focus on the options and pick what best you have available. Don't try to judge the sentences in isolation.
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  07 Jun 2022, 14:28
sayantanc2k wrote:
After going through various suggestions by GMAT experts at Magoosh and Manhattan, I could arrive at the following conclusion:

The positive....comparative...superlative forms of certain adjectives of quantity are as follows:

set 1. many...more...most
set 2. much...more....most
set 3. great...greater...greatest

While set 1 (many...more...most) is used for countable nouns, set 2 (much...more....most) and set 3 (great...greater...greatest) are used for uncountable nouns.

Now there could be 2 types of uncountable nouns
type a. Quantity word / numbers themselves (e.g. price, volume, weight, probability etc.) are uncountable.
type b. Other uncountable nouns (honesty, poverty, etc as you mentioned)

The set 2 (much...more....most) is used for type b (other uncountable nouns) uncountable nouns.
The set 3 ( great...greater...greatest) is used for type a (Quantity word / numbers) uncountable nouns.

Therefore we see that "more" can be used for (i) countable nouns and (ii) uncountable nouns that are not quantity words/ numbers.
"Greater" can be used for (iii) uncountable nouns that are quantity words/ numbers.



What about high? High Higher Highest vs Great Greater Greatest . Eg: Higher probability of something happening vs Greater Probability happening. How would look at that.

Forgive my ignorance.
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  10 Jun 2022, 03:14
Is there any chance that 'Physician' could refer 'their' in the below sentence -
(D) greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  10 Jun 2022, 05:09
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Kritika09 wrote:
Is there any chance that 'Physician' could refer 'their' in the below sentence -
(D) greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease


Hello Kritika09,

We hope this finds you well.

We assume your query here is whether "their" could refer to "physicians" rather than "doctors".

To answer your query, "their" actually does refer to "physicians"; this sentence uses both "physicians" and "doctors" to refer to the participants in the study.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  26 Aug 2022, 17:22
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!


GMATNinja
Thank 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?
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  26 Aug 2022, 19:29
LithiumIon wrote:
A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank, the more they had a likelihood of coronary disease.


(A) more they had a likelihood of coronary disease

(B) more was their likelihood of having coronary disease

(C) more they would have a likelihood to have coronary disease

(D) greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease

(E) greater was coronary disease likely



Show Spoiler
Coffee and Coronary Disease

(A) Modifier / Meaning (more)

(B) Modifier / Meaning (more); Meaning (have a likelihood to have)

(C) Modifier / Meaning (more)

(D) CORRECT

(E) Modifier / Meaning (greater was disease likely)


First glance

The choices start with one of two options: more or greater. Both words are modifiers indicating quantity, but they are used differently. Think about the meaning of the sentence as you read it.

Issues

(1) Modifier / Meaning: more

More and greater are both used to compare quantities. Consider these examples:

Vanessa has studied more than you. (correct)

Vanessa has studied greater than you. (incorrect)

The more you study, the greater your chances of success on the GMAT. (correct)

The greater you study, the more your chances of success on the GMAT. (incorrect)

Why are the incorrect options incorrect? In the first sentence (studied more), the distinction is based on quantity; perhaps Vanessa has studied for four hours and you have studied for only two. In the second sentence (studied greater), the distinction is not based on number. Perhaps Vanessa has studied more effectively than you have? The meaning is unclear, so that’s not a great sentence.

In the third sentence (the more you study), you are changing your chances of success based on the amount that you study. If you don’t study as much, your chances aren’t as good, but if you do study more, then you increase your chances—they are greater than they would have been.

The fourth sentence, though, doesn’t say that your chances increase. It says that your chances are more. You could give yourself more chances to succeed by, for example, taking the test multiple times—but that’s not what this sentence is trying to convey.

In the question, the sentence is trying to convey that, if the doctors drink more coffee, then their chances of having coronary disease increase. The proper form, then, is the more coffee [they] drank, the greater their chances (or likelihood) of having coronary disease.

In general, use the modifier greater, not the modifier more, to pair with the word likelihood. Eliminate choices (A), (B), and (C).

(2) Meaning: have a likelihood to have

The wording have a likelihood to have is redundant. The two instances of have are conveying the same meaning. Eliminate choice (C).

(3) Modifier / Meaning: greater was disease likely

What was actually greater? The disease itself is not greater; rather, the likelihood of having the disease was greater. The wording in choice (E), though, changes the word likelihood to the word likely. You can say that something is more likely to happen, but it’s not acceptable to say that something is greater likely to happen. Eliminate choice (E).

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (D) uses the accepted form the more coffee they drink, the greater was their likelihood. (You could also use the following form: The more you study, the greater your likelihood of success.)








Can someone help me decode the usage of word "having" in sentence D. Doesn't present continuous tense reflect the idea that an action is happening right now as we speak, how does this pan out to the usage of word "having" here in this situation?

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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  29 Aug 2022, 04:06
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AbhinavKumar wrote:
LithiumIon wrote:
A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank, the more they had a likelihood of coronary disease.


(A) more they had a likelihood of coronary disease

(B) more was their likelihood of having coronary disease

(C) more they would have a likelihood to have coronary disease

(D) greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease

(E) greater was coronary disease likely



Show Spoiler
Coffee and Coronary Disease

(A) Modifier / Meaning (more)

(B) Modifier / Meaning (more); Meaning (have a likelihood to have)

(C) Modifier / Meaning (more)

(D) CORRECT

(E) Modifier / Meaning (greater was disease likely)


First glance

The choices start with one of two options: more or greater. Both words are modifiers indicating quantity, but they are used differently. Think about the meaning of the sentence as you read it.

Issues

(1) Modifier / Meaning: more

More and greater are both used to compare quantities. Consider these examples:

Vanessa has studied more than you. (correct)

Vanessa has studied greater than you. (incorrect)

The more you study, the greater your chances of success on the GMAT. (correct)

The greater you study, the more your chances of success on the GMAT. (incorrect)

Why are the incorrect options incorrect? In the first sentence (studied more), the distinction is based on quantity; perhaps Vanessa has studied for four hours and you have studied for only two. In the second sentence (studied greater), the distinction is not based on number. Perhaps Vanessa has studied more effectively than you have? The meaning is unclear, so that’s not a great sentence.

In the third sentence (the more you study), you are changing your chances of success based on the amount that you study. If you don’t study as much, your chances aren’t as good, but if you do study more, then you increase your chances—they are greater than they would have been.

The fourth sentence, though, doesn’t say that your chances increase. It says that your chances are more. You could give yourself more chances to succeed by, for example, taking the test multiple times—but that’s not what this sentence is trying to convey.

In the question, the sentence is trying to convey that, if the doctors drink more coffee, then their chances of having coronary disease increase. The proper form, then, is the more coffee [they] drank, the greater their chances (or likelihood) of having coronary disease.

In general, use the modifier greater, not the modifier more, to pair with the word likelihood. Eliminate choices (A), (B), and (C).

(2) Meaning: have a likelihood to have

The wording have a likelihood to have is redundant. The two instances of have are conveying the same meaning. Eliminate choice (C).

(3) Modifier / Meaning: greater was disease likely

What was actually greater? The disease itself is not greater; rather, the likelihood of having the disease was greater. The wording in choice (E), though, changes the word likelihood to the word likely. You can say that something is more likely to happen, but it’s not acceptable to say that something is greater likely to happen. Eliminate choice (E).

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (D) uses the accepted form the more coffee they drink, the greater was their likelihood. (You could also use the following form: The more you study, the greater your likelihood of success.)








Can someone help me decode the usage of word "having" in sentence D. Doesn't present continuous tense reflect the idea that an action is happening right now as we speak, how does this pan out to the usage of word "having" here in this situation?

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Hello AbhinavKumar,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, here "having" is not actually an example of the simple present continuous tense, rather it is a present participle ("verb+ing") that serves as a modifier for the noun "likelihood".

Unlike the simple present continuous tense, the present participle can refer to ongoing actions in any time period.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  31 Aug 2022, 13:35
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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!


GMATNinja
Thank 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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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink] New post  05 Sep 2023, 12:19
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Re: A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more cof [#permalink]
05 Sep 2023, 12:19
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