According to a survey of graduating medical students conducted by Association of American Medical College, minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than are other graduates in planning to practice in socioeconomically deprived areas.


(A) minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than are other graduates in planning to practice

(B) minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than other graduates who plan on practicing

(C) minority graduates are nearly four times as likely as other graduates to plan on practicing

(D) it is nearly four times more likely that minority graduates rather than other graduates will plan to practice

(E) it is nearly four times as likely for minority graduates than other graduates to plan to practice


Source : GMATPrep Default Exam Pack

In this sentence both "more likely than" and "as likely as" are correct but the problem is that "likely" should be followed by "to" in the sentence.


I fell for A....but the correct answer is C.

(A) minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than are other graduates in planning to practice - "likely to" is the correct idiom..."likely..... in" is incorrect

(B) minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than [are] other graduates who plan on practicing - "likely...... who" is incorrect

(C) minority graduates are nearly four times as likely as [are] other graduates to plan on practicing - "likely......to plan...." is correct

Hey Nusma,

Well, technically, it would be "X is Y times as likely as Z to do something". That's the full on comparison construction. But yes, the two things have to be nouns, because the verb comes after the Z (to do something).

-t

Okay. Lots of questions.

Werewolf: I think I overemphasized this issue. A and B have tons of other problems, and it may be legit to say "four times more likely." However, D is definitely wrong, because it can't be four times more likely with nothing to compare to grammatically.

I also want to address Ramana's issue, which was also sent to be privately by another student. The preferred form is "plan to VERB." I don't know for certain is the correct answer choice here would be correct on the GMAT. Just know the preferred form, and that this form is also possible. I doubt you'll ever be asked to make a direct choice between the two, with no other issues to look at.

-t

First of all, "more likely than" and "as likely as" are bothe correct. But "more likely that" and "as likely for" are unidiomatic. Hence we are left with A B and C

A can be ruled out because the two portions being compared by "more likely than" are not parallel. "Minority graduates" and "are other graduates". Instead it should be "minority graduates" and "other graduates".
Hence we are left with B and C

One rule to keep in mind is that infinitives are preferred when a certain action will occur in future. Hence in this case "to plan" is preferred. Also, option B compares "minority graduates" with "other graduates who plan on practicing" which is not correct.

Hence option C is the correct ans.

correct idiom usage:

more ....than (more....rather than =>wrong)... (more.....as=>wrong)
....likely....to (...likely ....in =>this is wrong)
as .....as (as.....than=>wrong)

1. minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than are other graduates in planning to practice
WRONG.
likely ...IN ==>incorrect usage.

2. minority graduates are nearly four times more likely than other graduates who plan on practicing
WRONG.
who plan on practicing is a modifier ,so sentence should make sense after removing this,but on removing it is not clear four times more likely what??

3. minority graduates are nearly four times as likely as other graduates to plan on practicing
CORRECT.

4. it is nearly four times more likely that minority graduates rather than other graduates will plan to practice
WRONG.
MORE..RATHER THAN =.incorrect.

5. it is nearly four times as likely for minority graduates than other graduates to plan to pratice
WRONG.
AS.....THAN =>incorrect usage.


plan -to ....and ......plan - on ==>both are correct usage.

hope it helps
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Hi Kinjal,

Thanks for posting your doubt here.

Option A is incorrect because "likely" is not followed by "to verb". This word is always followed by a "to verb". For example: Kinjal is likely to understand this explanation. However, in this choice what we have is "likely... in planning to practice". This is the incorrect idiom here. Now, the other idiom "more... than..." is fine. But it has been out so cleverly between this "likely" idiom that we only focus on that. There is no problem with "four times more likely" here.

Option B is also incorrect for the same reason. In fact, the "who clause" just provided additional information. The whole planning part now belongs to the "other graduates" and do not even relate to "minority graduates" in the main clause.

Option C is the correct answer as it rectifies the idiom error in Choice A. The choice says "likely... to plan on practicing".

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Hi sk5002,

In both Choice A and B, the comparison is logical and absolutely unambiguous. Presence or absence of "are" does not affect the comparison because there is nothing else in the sentences with which "minority graduates" can be compared. the only logical entity in the sentence that can be compared to "minority graduates" is "other graduates". Hence, presence or absence of "are" does not lead to any ambiguity and hence, its presence or absence is OPTIONAL but NOT INCORRECT.

For example:

Ronny is a better bowler than Roy (is). --> In this sentence, we may or may not choose to repeat the helping Verb "is" because the comparison is absolutely clear. he two compared entities in this sentence are "Ronny" and "Roy". When a sentence presents CLEAR COMPARISON, repeating the helping Verb becomes OPTIONAL as we see in this official sentence.

Repeating the helping Verb becomes mandatory when the sentence conveys AMBIGUOUS COMPARISON. For example:

Ronny is familiar with Roy longer than Ria.

This sentence presents AMBIGUOUS COMPARISON because we can interpret two comparisons here:

1. Ronny is familiar with Roy longer than is Ria. --> Entities Compared - Ronny and Ria

2. Ronny is familiar with Roy longer than with Ria. --> Entities Compared - Roy and Ria

So, if the author intends to communicate the first meaning, then he MUST repeat the helping Verb "is". In absence of this helping verb, the sentence leads to ambiguous comparison. You can also read this article on Ellipses in Comparison for more clarity on this topic: how-far-ellipsis-is-permissible-in-comparison-148973.html

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
SJ
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Hi zoezhuyan!

The most obvious error in D) is "four times more likely that". When we are saying that something is a certain number of times as likely as something else, we need to use "as", not "more". If we use "more", then "four times more likely" actually means 5 times the probability (this has been explained by others above). Here, the intended meaning is four times the probability, which means we need to say "four times as likely". We can definitely say something like:

It is more likely that he will get the job.

But we CANNOT say:

It is ten times more likely that he will get the job.

When we're talking about numbers in regards to probabilities like this, we need to be more careful about our wording.

I hope that helps!
-Carolyn
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Hi zoezhuyan,

Saying "4 times more likely than" is a very awkward way to say "5 times as likely", and so you can pretty safely assume that unless it's explicitly stated, the intention is "4 times as likely". You will probably never see "X times more likely" as a correct construction.

Hope that helps
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