According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which the number of babies born to women over the age of thirty was greater than the number of babies born to women under it.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses + Pronouns

• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

A: Correct. The sentence formed by this answer choice uses the phrase "than under it", conveying the intended meaning - that in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which the number of babies born to women over the age of thirty was greater than the number of babies born to women under the age of 30. Further, Option A correctly uses the simple past tense verb "were born" to refer to an action that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option A avoids the pronoun error seen in Option C, as it uses no pronouns.

B: The sentence formed by this answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "than born under it"; the construction of this phrase illogically conveys that in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which the number of babies born to women over the age of thirty was greater than the number of babies born under the age of 30; the intended meaning is that in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which the number of babies born to women over the age of thirty was greater than the number of babies born to women under the age of 30.

C: This answer choice suffers from a pronoun error, as the pronoun "they" lacks a clear and logical referent.

D: The sentence formed by this answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "than there had been under it"; the construction of this phrase illogically conveys that in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which the number of babies born to women over the age of thirty was greater than the number of babies born under the age of 30; the intended meaning is that in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which the number of babies born to women over the age of thirty was greater than the number of babies born to women under the age of 30. Further, Option D incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had been (born)" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

E: The sentence formed by this answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "than had been born under it"; the construction of this phrase illogically conveys that in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which the number of babies born to women over the age of thirty was greater than the number of babies born under the age of 30; the intended meaning is that in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which the number of babies born to women over the age of thirty was greater than the number of babies born to women under the age of 30. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had been born" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

A should be the answer.
more women over X than under it.

the sentence is comparing the age of women and not the age of babies born, so rule out B and E.
C and D - ruled out because of lack of parallelism. - more women over X than "they were"/"than there had been" is incorrect..

According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than (to women) under it.

A.

Option E reads

According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than [babies] had been born under it

By introducing the verb, the meaning of the sentence changes, saying that more babies were born under the age of thirty. This doesn't make any sense.

Option A, relies on the ellipsis to make the right comparison


According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than [babies were born to women] under it [age of thirty]

Hi,

This is a tricky one. I think what helps differentiate the answers is to think about what the comparison is: Women under the age of thirty VS. Women over the age of thirty

And the structure is: More X than Y

or with the story filled in: More Women over the age thirty than under the age of thirty

The other thing that helps is to fill in the noun/noun phrase that the pronoun "it" is replacing. Replacing pronouns is often helpful in SC. It's good to make this a habit.

Answer B is wrong because you have were born on one side of the comparison and only born on the other side. You need to have were born on both sides or nothing at all (in this case the were born is distributed to the second half of the comparison). It's a bit like a list in which you can have the bar, the plane, and the floor or the bar, plane, and floor but not the plane, bar, and the floor. Either you need to have every element or just let the first element distribute. In general, you cannot mix and match.

Another strategy here is to re-arrange the sentence: More babies were born to woman over the age of thirty than (were born to) woman under the age of thirty in the state of Mass. in 1998.

Let me know if you need more advice on this one.

Happy Studies,

HG.

Hmmm how could you simply imply the 'were born to' in the second half of the sentence? Are you saying the first were born to is the first and only element to be distributed? But that phrase 'were born to' is after more (within the idiotmatic construction)

Hi,

I hope that you are well. I'm not exactly sure what your question is but let's take a look at another example:

In 2013 more profits were earned by Coca Cola than were earned by Pepsi
Were earned by CC is parallel to Were earned by Pepsi

In 2013 more profits were earned by Coca Cola than by Pepsi
By CC is parallel to By Pepsi and the were earned applies to both

In 2013 more profits were earned by Coca Cola than earned by Pepsi
Were earned by CC is NOT parallel to earned by Pepsi

The first two are equivalent. The last is incorrect and very similar to answer choice B.

Happy Studies,

HG.

Hi there,

According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than under it.

It is important to understand the intended meaning of the sentence.
• This sentence presents comparison. We need to find out what are the entities that are compared here.
• In 1998, Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to woman who were over the age of 30 than to those woman who were under the age of 30.
• The entities compared here the woman over 30 and woman under 30.

Now let’s see what the Errors are in this sentence:
Now there is just one word underlined in this sentence. The idiom used in this sentence is “…more babies are born to X than Y”. Here X and Y should be parallel.
X = woman over the age of thirty (noun phrase)
Y = (woman) under it (it = the age of thirty)
Since bot the entities are parallel here, there is no error in this sentence.

PoE:

A. than: Correct for the reason stated above.

B. than born: Incorrect. This choice leads to illogical comparison. Per this choice, entity Y = (babies) born under it (it = the age of thirty). This means the babies were under the age of 30. This is absolutely non-sensical.

C. than they were: Incorrect. Firstly, pronoun “they” is ambiguous here. If “they” refers to “babies”, then also it leads to illogical meaning and if “they” refers to “women”, then also lead to illogical meaning.

D. than there had been: Incorrect. This choice uses the incorrect verb tense as well as presents illogical comparison.

E. than had been born: Inocrrect. This choice repeats the verb tense error of choice D and illogical comparison error of choice B.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Well, the events did not happen one before the other but at the same time so the past perfect is incorrect. You should always question the use of the perfect tense and make sure that the order of the events is important to the meaning of the sentence. You can have a bunch of different events happening in the past and all of them can be in the past simple.

Even excusing the tense the meaning is obscured because it would seem that babies were born under 30 and not that the babies were born to women under thirty.

HG.

Note:
- see the word "it" at the end of the sentence. "it" refers to what? Clearly, "it" refers to "thirty" ==> The comparison should be "women over thirty" vs "women under thirty".
- When see a comparison, be aware of "middle man" - a noun/noun phrase between two people/things being compared.


According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than [to women] under it.

1. than
Correct. Comparison "women over thirty" vs "women under thirty" (under "it"); "over" vs "under.

2. than born
Wrong. ambiguous. Because of the "middle man" - women ==> the meaning may be changed to "more babies were born to women over thirty than (women) born under it

3. than they were
Wrong. "they" refers to who? babies or women?

4. than they had been
Wrong. Same problem as in (3). "they" is not clear.

5. than had been born
Wrong. Same as in (2). Because of the middle man - women, the intended meaning may be distorted.

Hope it's clear

Yes, this is an apples vs oranges question.

"more babies were born to X than Y"

x = women over 30
y = women under 30

No need to mention the verb "born" in the answer choices - so the simplest one works.

According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than under it.

Basically
more babies were born to women over the age of thirty
than
babies were born to women under the age of thirty

age of thirty -> it
"babies were born to women" is ellipsed.

A. than -> Hence correct
B. than born
C. than they were
D. than there had been
E. than had been born

A good video on this question is here:

this question tests you on parallelism and meaning.

"than" requires parallelism. Also, note that "it" refers to "age of thirty".

"more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than under it." - Note that for parallelism, we start from right to left. See what is parallel to "under it" on the Left hand side of "than".

A maintains parallelism and hence is the correct answer. Since the sentence maintains parallelism what is implied here -
More babies were born to women over the age of thirty than [babies were born to women] under it.

B - Incorrect answer.
Answer option does not maintain parallelism. let us look at parallelism -
"more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than born under it."

Not perfectly parallel. "to women" is missing in RHS.
This answer option nonsensically implies that "[babies were] born under age of thirty".

C - Incorrect answer.

"more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than they were under it.". - two clauses are in parallel; however, "to women" is omitted. this changes the meaning of the sentence.

this sentence implies that babies were born under age of 30. - Illogical.

D - Incorrect.
Usage of past perfect is incorrect. We are referring to a specific time period - 1998.
Also, this option changes the meaning of the sentence.

E - Incorrect.
Usage of past perfect is incorrect. We are referring to a specific time period - 1998.
Changes the meaning of the sentence (like option B) -
"more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than had been born under it."

Not perfectly parallel. "to women" is missing in RHS.
This answer option nonsensically implies that "babies had been born under age of thirty".

Omission of items (even more than two items) is definitely acceptable in the second element of a parallel structure, if those items have already been used in the first element and the meaning is not obscured.

On the other hand, not omitting will be considered a poor practice, if items are not omitted when they can be without ambiguity. This is because of concision issue.

Moreover when a verb is to be omitted, omit the complete verb, not a part of it. In option B a part of the verb "were born" is omitted. Either use "were born" or omit it altogether. But using a part i.e. "born" is wrong. If option B were "than were born", it would be alright.

In option C, the pronoun "they" is wrong. "They" wrongly refers to "babies", the SAME babies who were born to women over the age of thirty. Here a new copy of the noun "babies" is required (who were born to women under the age of thirty), hence using "they" is wrong. the correct pronoun is "that" (to create a new copy).

HERE, the most important point to note was the INTENDED COMPARISON. We are comparing WOMEN OVER THE AGE OF 30 THAN THE WOMEN UNDER THE AGE OF 30. If this comparison is clear, there is nothing left in this question.

Also, ONE MORE IMPORTANT POINT TO NOTE is WHAT is this "it" referring to??
Whenever "it" is used in a COMPARISON sentence, "it" refers to the entire NOUN PHRASE and NOT JUST THE NOUN. VERY IMPORTANT POINT TO KEEP A NOTE OF. So, here "it" is referring to "THE AGE OF THIRTY" and NOT JUST the age.

Coming back to the question,

A. According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than to women under the age of thirty.
Sounds LOGICAL. The implied meaning is ALSO CRISP AND CLEAR. Perfect answer!

B. According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than born under it.
Here, the comparison becomes,

more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than (were) born under the age of thirty.
Thus, the comparison is ILLOGICAL. Here we are comparing the babies born to women over the age of thirty to the babies born under the age of 30. This is totally NON-SENSE.

C. According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than they were under it.
Here, there are 2 possible errors

1. "they" can refer to both the women as well as the babies. Therefore, PRONOUN AMBIGUITY error.
2. the comparison is actually between the women over the age of 30 VS women under the age of 30. So, logically "they" should refer to women.

According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than women were under the age of 30. --> TOTALLY NON SENSICAL COMPARISON.

Maybe, if we can try the other way round,

According to public health officials, in 1998 Massachusetts became the first state in which more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than babies were under the age of 30. --> AGAIN TOTALLY NON SENSICAL COMPARISON.

Options D and E are wrong because of the usage of "HAD BEEN". No verb sequencing is required here. As we are talking wrt to the TIMEFRAME -- in 1998. So, the usage is totally INCORRECT.

I hope I had covered all the possible scenarios.

It will be helpful to remember that whenever a helping verb or auxiliary verb is being used in one arm, one needn't repeat the verb in the second arm. Here in the given case, 'were born' is the verb phrase where 'were' is the helping verb, Therefore, it will be in order to elide the verb in the second arm after 'than'. That is the reason that choices C, D and E, which repeat the verb after the comparator 'than ' are not correct. Even B which is jumping half the well is inappropriate. A is the eventual winner. Obviously, grammar skills are so important even in such advanced tests such as GMAT