Although it was expected that workers under forty would show hostility

Question

Although it was expected that workers under forty would show hostility to the plan, the research report indicates that both  younger and the older people  approve of governmental appropriations for Social Security.

(A) younger and the older people

(B) younger people and the older

(C) the younger and the older people

(D) younger and older people

(E) people who are younger and those who are older

daagh · Accepted Answer

Yes; I agree with Yang. In comparisons 'the' is used for superlative degree and refers to the one single unique thing that outperforms rest. Therefore, A, B, and C are out of the reckoning. Choice E is unnecessarily wordy.

duttsit · Answer

C. parallelism

Not sure why D is wrong. C felt more correct to me. Others can be eliminates safely.

gsr · Answer

D.

'the' is not necessary. If it was singular, it would read - 'the report indicates that the younger people approve' and doesn't sound good.

duttsit · Answer

Can you please elaborate or give another example. I, still, cannot understnad the difference between article "the" included vs not.

gsr · Answer

duttsit, this one is really tricky. Both C and D seem good. D just sounded better. I picked it.
I did a search on the forum and found out that this question has been discussed upon several times. Here, I found that no single reason was unanimously accepted. I think OA says D. Anyways, i think we shouldn't over-analyze this.

laxieqv · Answer

when we say " the younger" and "the older" , we mention people of the kind. Thus, adding "people" is redudant. 
For this reason, I choose  D  over C.

GMATT73 · Answer

The younger/older is used as a comparison. 

Ex: The younger a person is the faster they learn.

Best answer is D. Short and sweet.

krisrini · Answer

I am stuck between C and D. I read both of them correct. In such scenarios, I would always choose a shorter answer, and I go with D. I would like to read the OE though.

EBITDA · Answer

I also doubted between C and D.

However, the sentence is talking about younger and older people in general, not about specific "younger" and "older" people, so the article "the" is out of place.

YangYichen · Answer

i think "the" represents singular noun , and here it means many people
correct me if i'm wrong

ColumbiaEMBA · Answer

DIfference? Added "the". Why would you need to add "the" before younger and older?

singhkniraj · Answer

Aren't they specifically talking about the people in consideration here and hence "the" becomes a must

singhkniraj · Answer

I think there are talking about specific people of that country/region etc and hence "the" is useful here .

Still haven't got a convincing reason to negate C apart from short and crisp philosophy. 
Someone cares to explain ?

NCC · Answer

Please share why "the" is not required here

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  NCC ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "the" is not needed, as both instances of "the" can be omitted without a loss of clarity.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

VerbalBot · Answer

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Although it was expected that workers under forty would show hostility

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Although it was expected that workers under forty would show hostility

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