NischalSR
EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!
Let’s take a look at this question, one issue at a time, and figure out which option is correct.
According to a recent study, retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children as to receive it from them.
A. retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children as
B. retirees in the United States are four times as likely to give regular financial aid to their children as it is for them
C. retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children than
D. it is four times more likely for retirees in the United States to give regular financial aid to their children than they are
E. it is four times as likely that retirees in the United States will give their children regular financial aid as they are
After doing a quick scan over the options, there are a couple glaring differences between each option than we can focus on:
1. How they begin: “…retirees in the United States…” vs. “…it is four times more likely…”
2. How they end: “as” / “as it is” / “than” / “than they are” / “as they are”
Since #1 on our list will knock out 2-3 options immediately, let’s start by figuring out how the phrase should start. Right away, we notice that options D and E use vague pronouns:
D. it is four times more likely for retirees in the United States to give regular financial aid to their children than they are
E. it is four times as likely that retirees in the United States will give their children regular financial aid as they are
What is "it" referring to here? We don't know - and that is a MAJOR problem. All pronouns need clear antecedents! Options D and E can be tossed out as INCORRECT because they include pronouns without antecedents.
That leaves us with options A, B, and C. Let’s take a closer look at how each option ends. Each one needs to use parallel structure and follow idiomatic rules, so let’s focus on how well each accomplishes these tasks:
A. retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children as
This is INCORRECT because it doesn’t follow the proper idiomatic structure “more likely to X than Y.” It says "more likely to X as Y," which is wrong.
B. retirees in the United States are four times as likely to give regular financial aid to their children as it is for them
This is INCORRECT because of pronoun agreement issues. The singular pronoun “it” is referring back to the plural “retirees,” which doesn’t match up in number.
C. retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children than
This is CORRECT because it uses the correct idiomatic structure “X is more likely to…than Y.” Also, all pronouns are in agreement!
There you go - option C is the right answer!
Don’t study for the GMAT. Train for it.
Hello
EMPOWERgmatVerbal GMATNinja,
Thanks for the explanation.
Can we eliminate options D and E
solely based on pronoun ambiguity? Because THEY can refer to both retirees and children.
Please suggest.
Thanks for your question
NischalSR.
Yes, you can eliminate options D and E solely for pronoun ambiguity. The pronoun "it" doesn't refer to anything specific - in fact, "it" doesn't really refer to anything. If you're looking for other problems with D and E, there are other issues that are less obvious than the glaring pronoun problem:
D. it is four times more likely
for retirees in the United States to give regular financial aid to their children than
they are to receive it from them.
We could also eliminate option D because the idiom "more likely to X than Y" doesn't sound parallel here. It would sound nicer to rewrite it to look more like this:
...it is four times more likely
for retirees in the United States to give regular financial aid to their children than
for retirees to receive it from their children.Also, stacking up two pronouns at the end (they...them) can be confusing for readers if they're not paying close attention to the meaning. In the hypothetical rewrite above, we also got rid of the vague pronouns for the sake of clarity.
E. it is
four times as likely that retirees in the United States will give their children regular financial aid
as they are
This is also incorrect because the phrase "four times as likely as" doesn't make logical sense. You cannot say that X is four times Y, and then say those two things are the same. One is clearly "more" than the other. This is an idiom problem, so we could rule option E out for this reason too.
We hope this helps! Keep tagging us at
EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any more questions!