CRACKGMATNUT
GMATNinja if option D was written like this : Because 70 percent of the people of India use wood as their sole fuel, ten million acres of forest have been lost there since 1960,and as a result wood now costs eight times as much to collect and distribute
as in 1960,
sentence without IT DID .. was it still a correct a option?
I am trying to link Haley's comet example with this one. Both are time to time comparison. Secondly, IT cannot pick and choose isn't it? Shouldn't IT be referring to "WOOD NOW" making the sentence WOOD NOW DID IN 1960... , making the sentence non-sensical.
Obviously I have some conceptual gap here. Can you please help?
This is what makes comparisons so tough. There's no rule that governs all scenarios, and these two examples are very different.
The Halley's comet question has the following construction: "In x... as in y." The sentence begins with a prepositional phrase, and there's a single "as" that seems to compare the prepositional phrases. Seems okay.
Now take another look at the relevant portion of (D) in this question:
Quote:
Wood now costs eight times
as much to collect and distribute
as it did in 1960.
Notice that here, "as" shows up twice and there's no initial prepositional phrase to compare "in 1960" to. If I can't compare prepositional phrases, it makes sense to compare what something
cost in one period to what it
cost (or
did) in another period, so the second verb is useful. Otherwise, it's tough to tell what "in 1960" is doing.
Is there a rule to learn here? Sadly, no. You need to be able to dissect and analyze the logic of a new construction under pressure.
That's what SC comparisons are testing, not your able to remember a bunch of constructions you've seen before.
So don't try to memorize examples. Instead, you'll want to practice thinking logically under pressure. And if you're ever not sure about the logic of a comparison, look for other issues.
For more on comparisons, check out
this old video (and
its sequel) or
this shorter one.
I hope that helps!