A researcher claims that a tornado of a given size and strength is lik

Excellent question! As others have pointed out in this thread, proper parallelism doesn't mean you have two items that look the same -- it means you have two items that play the same grammatical (and logical) role.

Typically, when a prepositional phrase (such as "in absolute numbers") follows a clause, it will function as an adverb, describing the previous action. For example, "Natalie stabbed her baby sister with a stuffed unicorn horn." What did Natalie use to stab her sister? A stuffed unicorn horn. Similarly, an "-ly" word will also function as an adverb describing an action. "Natalie stabbed her baby sister gently." How did Natalie stab her sister? Gently. (Unfortunately, toddlers rarely stab their sisters gently. Don't ask me why I know that.)

Take another look at the OA: "A researcher claims that a tornado of a given size and strength is likely to cause more deaths, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern." Now we have a prepositional phrase and an "-ly" word and both are adverbs describing the previous action. So both of those phrases give us information about how many deaths the tornado caused. They may not look identical, but they're performing the same function, and so they're grammatically parallel.

I hope that helps!
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Personal Explanation:
A researcher claims that a tornado of a given size and strength is likely to cause more deaths, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern.

Analysis:
Meaning:
A researcher claims
that a tornado
of a given size and strength (Modifies tornado)
is likely to cause more deaths
, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, (Modifies deaths)
in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern. (Verb modifier : modifies "to cause" ;
Noun modifier: modifies "deaths")

Meaning:
Researcher claims : tornado is likely to cause deaths.

Ans: A
B. If {present a clause} THEREFORE INCORRECT
C. Idiom: MORE + THAN (NOT RATHER THAN) ; IT - no antedent
D. Idiom: MORE + THAN (NOT RATHER THAN)
E. Modifier error: Both proportionately and in absolute numbers must modify deaths

Please comment on explanation. Thanks.

A tip: For those who struggle to choose between A and B (because of tiny modifiers replacement): get rid of modifiers between commas. In this case option B loses the meaning. Hence A is correct.

A researcher claims that a tornado of a given size and strength is likely to cause more deaths, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern.

(A) A researcher claims that a tornado of a given size and strength is likely to cause more deaths, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern. CORRECT, both proportionately and in absolute numbers modifies deaths and of a given size and strength modifies tornado

(B) A researcher claims that a tornado, if of a given size and strength, is likely both proportionately and in absolute numbers to cause more deaths in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern.INCORRECT as usage of if which is a clause is incorrect here . "Likely both proportionately and in absolute numbers" is an awkward construction

(C) A researcher claims that, with a tornado of a given size and strength, it is likely to cause more death, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, in the southeastern rather than in the northeastern region of the United States.INCORRECT, as it has no clear antecedent. Also RATHER THAN is used instead of more than. There is a meaning error too

(D) If a tornado is of a given size and strength, a researcher claims, it is more likely, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, to cause death if it is in the southeastern region of the United States rather than in the northeastern region. - INCORRECT, Usage of rather than. Also it does not have clear referent. Additionally there is a meaning change too

(E) Both proportionately and in absolute numbers, a researcher claims that a tornado of a given size and strength is likely to cause more deaths in the southeastern region of the United States rather than in the northeastern. - INCORRECT, Use of RATHER THAN is incorrect.Also there is a meaning change. Modifier Issue is also there as both proportionately and in absolute numbers are misplaced in the beginning of the sentence.

Can someone explain to me why "both proportionately and in absolute numbers" is correct. I went through all the answer choices and can see that it has been used everywhere so it must be right. I just want to understand how? I mean proportionately is a verb and in absolute numbers is a prepositional phrase then how are they parallel to each other?

GMATNinja: Since it is a OG question I hope you will clear the doubt :P

egmat

(A) A researcher claims that a tornado of a given size and strength is likely to cause more deaths, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern.

In the above option "Than" is used for comparison ,and comparison is always between two logical things.But here the southeastern region is compared to Northeastern.
Isn't it necessary that "Region" should be followed by Northeastern?

In situations like these, you'll want to ask yourself whether removing the word "region" from the second part of the phrase causes any real problems. Here are some stripped-down versions of the sentence:

1. A tornado causes more deaths in the southeastern region than in the northeastern region.
2. A tornado causes more deaths in the southeastern region than in the northeastern.

Are these two sentences meaningfully different? Is there any confusion about what the word "northeastern" is referring to? I would argue that the answer to both of these questions is "no." The sentence is perfectly fine, either way. And as we look through all five answer choices, there are far more important issues than this one.

I hope this helps!
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Could anyone please explain what "to cause more deaths proportionately" means?
Proportionate to what? To the size and strength of a tornado?

(A): A researcher claims that a tornado of a given size and strength is likely to cause more deaths, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern.

I understand how to approach (A), but I don't understand a part of this sentence since English is my foreign language.

Thank you for your great help

Let's start with the easier concept, which is the absolute number of deaths - that just means the total casualty count (i.e., 100 people).

So, what do they mean by "more deaths proportionately"? To be honest, the meaning isn't entirely clear, and if you can answer the question without understanding that meaning, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

That said, this almost certainly refers to the number of deaths PER some number of people (i.e., 1 death out of every 1,000 people). But the meaning isn't explicitly defined, so I would expect anyone, native speaker or not, to be a bit confused here.

Luckily, this doesn't impact our analysis of this question, so we don't need to stress over it.

I hope this helps!
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Can someone please clarify when to use "rather than" and when only "than"?

Sure! We use "rather than" to express a preference between two options. We use "than" alone when comparing magnitude.

For example:

"Tim has attempted to cook more than 300 dinners this year, all of which have caused massive intestinal distress for his poor children."

Here, we're talking about a value greater than 300. There's no choice or preference here, so we don't use "rather." However, we could also write this:

"Rather than subject themselves to another one of Tim's ill-fated concoctions, Tim's daughters opted for dog biscuits instead."

Now there's a preference: Tim's daughters opt for dog food, rather than their father's cooking.

I hope that helps!
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But I think the example should be: Rather than subjected themselves to another one of Tim's ill-fated concoctions, Tim's daughters opted for dog biscuits instead. I think opted and subjected should be parallel?

"Rather than" functions differently than a parallel marker such as "and." To see why, consider a conventional parallel construction without "rather than."

Tim danced with his daughter and herniated several disks in his back.

This is the kind of simple parallelism we're accustomed to. "And" connects two parallel actions, "danced" and "herniated." Pretty straight-forward.

But watch what happens when we remove the "and" and introduce a "rather than."

Rather than dance with his daughter, Tim preserved his back so he could participate in the neighborhood jiu-jitsu tournament.

Now that we've eliminated "and," there's no parallel marker. Moreover, "rather than" changes the tense of the verb. You probably recognize instinctively that "rather than dance" is fine and that "rather than danced" is wrong. There's no need to memorize an obscure rule here. It's enough to see that the above sentence is acceptable and fundamentally different from the first example.

Same deal with the example involving Tim's ill-fated concoctions. Because there's no parallel marker, and "rather than" changes the verb tense, "rather than subject" is correct.

I hope that helps!
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i went through all explanations but could not convince myself why option B is incorrect.
can somebody throw light on it?

Thanks.

Hi kadamhari825, the intent of the original sentence is to convey that a tornado of (any) given size and strength will likely cause more devastation in the southeastern US than in the northeastern US.

B introduces this structure: if of a given size and strength.

So, B is changing the meaning of the original sentence, to convey that only if a tornado is of (some specific) given size and strength, (only) that tornado will likely cause more devastation in the southeastern US than in the northeastern US.

So, not only does B change the intended meaning, the meaning depicted in B is implausible.
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(D) If a tornado is of a given size and strength, a researcher claims, it is more likely, both proportionately and in absolute numbers, to cause death if it is in the southeastern region of the United States rather than in the northeastern region.

What is the error in this option?

GMATNinja
egmat
If any of you can explain.

There's no clear grammatical error in (D), but if you compare it side-by-side with (A), you can see why (D) is so much more confusing.

First, here's (A) again:


Pretty clear what the writer wants to communicate. A researcher is making a claim: big tornados kill more people in the southeast than in the northeast. Certainly good enough to hold on to.

Contrast that with (D):


As soon as I see that first clause "If a tornado is a given size and strength..." my expectation is that this will be followed by some conditional outcome. For instance, "If a tornado is very big, it may hurl a cow into an adjacent yard where Bill Paxton is trimming his toenails."

But that's not what we get in (D). Instead we get this: "If a tornado is a given size and strength, a researcher claims," Now I'm thrown off. If a tornado is a certain size, a researcher is going to make a claim? But if there were a smaller tornado, the researcher would remain silent? That's certainly weird, but maybe not inherently wrong, so let's keep going to see what the researcher is claiming.


You can feel this sentence going off the rails a little bit, can't you? I guess the "it" refers to "tornado," so now, when we read the part in blue, we basically have the following meaning: If a tornado is big, a researcher will claim that a tornado is more likely. That seems totally incoherent. How can a tornado that already exists be likely? It just is!

You can start to get the gist of the sentence when we get to the phrase, "to cause death," but then we get another 'if' clause! If there's a big tornado, researchers will claim that this tornado is more likely to cause deaths if this tornado is in the southeast. Now we've got two hypotheticals to wrap our heads around. Is the researcher claiming the second hypothetical? Or is the second hypothetical necessary for the researcher to make her initial claim?

This is when I begin to feel my brain melting.

Theoretically, can you make sense of what's happening? Sure. But this construction is awfully confusing and seems utterly incoherent without multiple reads. Inherently wrong? No. But worse than (A), which was crystal clear and logical? Without question.

The takeaway: SC isn't always about definitive errors. Sometimes it's about a side by side comparison in which you're trying to determine what's clearer or more logical.

I hope that helps!
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GMATNinja egmat KarishmaB
(B) A researcher claims that a tornado, if of a given size and strength, is likely both proportionately and in absolute numbers to cause more deaths in the southeastern region of the United States than in the northeastern.

I agree than A is better than B bcz B has introduced "If" condition
Could you help me with any other reason to reject B?

Thanks in advance!

In addition to the condition issue in (B), I don't like the "is likely both proportionately and in absolute numbers to cause more deaths" construction in (B).
The flow of the sentence is haywire here. 'likely' is modifying 'to cause'. What is likely? It is likely that it will cause more deaths. But placing 'both proportionately and in absolute numbers' adverbs between 'likely' and 'to cause' is disrupting the flow.
Also, 'both proportionately and in absolute numbers' modifies 'more' and is not essential to the sentence. It is given as an aside, extra information about 'more deaths'. Hence, the structure of (A) is superior in that sense too. In (A), 'both proportionately and in absolute numbers' is given as a non essential modifier that tells us 'more' in what respect. More proportionately as well as more in absolute numbers.

Sneha2021