According to a new report by the surgeon general

According to a new report by the surgeon general, women with less than a high school education had three times the likelihood that they would begin smoking as women who went to college.

(A) had three times the likelihood that they would begin smoking
Unidiomatic usage of likelihood. "likelihood of" is correct usage. Unnecessary use of past perfect.
(B) had three times the likelihood of beginning smoking
Unnecessary usage of past perfect. Doesn't go well with the 'as women...' part in the non-underlined portion
(C) were three times more likely to begin to smoke
more likely .. than / as likely ...as are correct constructions. more likely ... as is wrong usage.
(D) were three times more likely that they would begin to smoke
Same issue in C
(E) were three times as likely to begin smoking
as likely ... as is correct construction

According to a new report by the surgeon general, women with less than a high school education had three times the likelihood that they would begin smoking as women who went to college.

(A) had three times the likelihood that they would begin smoking - usage of past perfect tense is incorrect
(B) had three times the likelihood of beginning smoking - same as A
(C) were three times more likely to begin to smoke - idiom issue -- more likely than or as X as
(D) were three times more likely that they would begin to smoke -- idiom issue -- more likely than
(E) were three times as likely to begin smoking - Correct

Answer E
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In underlined portion we have 'as' so choices with more are unidiomatic here , therefore C and D are out.
'had likelihood' is wrong as women doesn't posses any likelihood . Moreover , the idiom here should be 'as likely as ' , which is correctly used in option E .
Option E is correct.

please highlight had under the question

the correct structure is "as likely...as"

Hi USADream,

Thank you for your question. Let's tackle this question one problem at a time, and see if we can narrow it down to a correct answer.

Let's start with the obvious difference in how each answer starts: had three times the likelihood/were three times more likely. When we talk about how likely something is to happen, we say it's more/less likely to happen, not that a person possesses a likelihood (it's not really a thing you can own). Therefore, let's get rid of answers A & B because they are using the wrong idiom.

Next, let's look at how each answer sets up the comparison, and whether or not they use proper idiomatic structure and parallel structure. For comparisons, the idiomatic structure needs to look like one of these two:

more likely to X than Y
as likely to X as Y

To show both idiomatic structure and parallelism, let's look at each answer with the rest of the sentence added in at the end:

(C) were three times more likely to begin to smoke as women who went to college.
(WRONG = doesn't follow the "more likely to X than Y" format)

(D) were three times more likely that they would begin to smoke as women who went to college.
(WRONG = doesn't follow the "more likely to X than Y" format)

(E) were three times as likely to begin smoking as women who went to college.
(CORRECT = uses the proper "as likely to X as Y" format)

Therefore, we can determine that E is the correct answer.
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