Fido10 wrote:
... don't you think that the comparison, rather, revolves around babies that were born to women with different ages ?
Hey
Fido10Happy to help you with this.
Here's how to find your way out of such a situation:
1. Start with meaning analysis, and understand what exactly are being compared and in what aspect.
For instance, if X and Y are being compared, and the aspect of comparison is Z, then we say:
a. X is more Z than Y.
e.g. Tom is more reliable than Tina.
Here, Tom and Tina are being compared. And "reliability" is the aspect of comparison.
So, when we say, "more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than under it", what exactly are the things being compared and what exactly is the aspect of comparison?
Note that the word "more" (or the comparative degree) is typically applied to the aspect of comparison and not to the things being compared.
So, 'more babies' suggests that the aspect of comparison is "the number of babies born to women". This automatically means that the things (entities) being compared are "women over the agee of thirty" and "women under the age of thirty".
X = women over the age of thirty
Y = women under it (the age of thirty)
Z = number of babies born to women
So, we have at least two ways to convey the above:
a. Women over the age of thirty have more babies than those under it.
b. More babies are born to women over the age of thirty than under it.
Both of these sentences mean the exact same thing.
Now that we have the meaning understood, let's focus on grammar.
2. Sentences with Comparisons in them will most likely contain some form of ellipsis or another.
"Ellipsis", in simple words, is the omission of repetitive words in comparative clauses. So, if we insert the omitted words, we get:
...more babies were born to women over the age of thirty than babies were born to women under it.
This is why choice A is the best of the given choices. It has zero repetition.
Here's an article on Ellipsis from our blog, for further reading: https://e-gmat.com/blogs/ellipses-in-co ... ing-verbs/
I hope this helps improve your understanding. Please feel free to revert for further clarification.
Happy Learning!
Abhishek