Because of less availability and greater demand for scientific researc

Because of less availability and greater demand for scientific research, platinum remains consistently expensive, like gold.

A. Because of less availability and greater demand for scientific research, platinum remains consistently expensive, like gold.
'lesser' would have been parallel to 'greater'..'demand in research ' is better than demand for research' and 'consistently' is not required with 'remains', so incorrect

B. Because of less availability and increased demand for scientific research, platinum remains consistently expensive, like that of gold.
'lesser' would have been parallel to 'greater'..'demand in research ' is better than demand for research'... wrong comparison 'that of' and 'consistently' is not required with 'remains', so incorrect

C. Because of decreased availability and increased demand in scientific research, platinum remains expensive, like gold.
correct.. decreased parallel to increased.. demand in research correct and consistently removed

D. Because of decreased availability and increased demand for scientific research, platinum remains expensive, like gold.
demand for research is wrong...

E. Because of decreased availability and greater demand in scientific research, platinum remains at a consistently high price, like that of gold.
almost same problem as B..

ans C..

The answer is C coz demand in Scientific Research is the correct use , not just idiomatically , but in the whole sense of the sentence.
The option Demand for scientific Research point to scientific research and not Platinum

Hope this helps

will go with option C

demand FOR scientific research means that scientific research itself is what's desired which is incorrect in this context, we are talking about the demand for platinum in scientific research.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

Demand in is preferred to demand for in such a usage. Like there is a lot of demand of IT professionals in the BPO industry, not FOR.

The original sentence contains several errors. First, "less availability" is incorrect when not used in a direct comparison: it begs the question "Less than what?" "Decreased availability" would be better here. Second, "greater demand" also begs the question "greater than what?" "Increased demand" would be better. Third, "Demand for scientific research" implies that the research is in demand, when in fact it is the platinum. "Demand in scientific research" would be better. Fourth, "remains consistently expensive" is redundant. "Remains expesnive" would be enough to convey the idea.

(A) This choice is incorrect as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) This choice is incorrect because while it replaces the "greater demand" with "increased demand," it leaves "less availability." "Demand for scientific research" should be changed to "demand in." The redundancy of "consistently" remains, and a illogical comparison is drawn between platinum and "that of gold." It is unclear what the "that" refers to.

(C) CORRECT. This choice replaces "less availability" with "decreased availability" and "greater demand" with "increased demand." The word "consistently" is removed, and "demand for" is changed to "demand in."

(D) This choice incorrectly keeps "Demand for scientific research," which should be changed to "demand in scientific research"

(E) This choice is incorrect because, while it replaces the "less availability" with "decreased availability," it leaves "greater demand." "Remains at a consistently high price" is redundant. It is also more concise to compare the platinum to the gold, rather than the high price (of platinum) to "that of the gold" as is attempted in E.

I went for A. Wow! Tough One.

Lets break it down.

We can actually break the sentence into two.

Which is better?
Less Availabilty OR Decreased availablity.

Less availabilty means that it is not found in large quantities. But 'Low availability' would have been grammatically better and correct.
Decreased availabilty means that it was available in higher quantities in the past.

So we go for Decreased availability.

That leaves us with C,D,E


C. Because of decreased availability and increased demand in scientific research, platinum remains expensive, like gold.
D. Because of decreased availability and increased demand for scientific research, platinum remains expensive, like gold.
E. Because of decreased availability and greater demand in scientific research, platinum remains at a consistently high price, like that of gold.

Which is better?
'increased demand in' or 'increased demand for' or 'greater demand in'?

Increased demand for scientific research does not explicitly state that Platinum was in demand. It can also be understood as an increased demand for scientific research in general.

So we are left with C & E
'increased demand in' or 'greater demand in'?
Both clearly state that the research was for Platinum.

E is wordy when compared to C.
'consistently high price' can simply be substituted with 'expensive'.

So C is the correct answer.

I got this wrong but i understand the correct option now.

A is out for using greater, which is used for comparison.

Between C and D.

"demand in scientific research" and "demand for scientific research"

The intent of the sentence is to say "the increased demand of platinum in scientific research" is making it expensive and not just the "increased demand for scientific research".

Hence C

Demand for always wrong?

Hi monir6000,

The answer to your question is ‘no’. Both the phrases “demand for” and “demand in” are correct. Their usage entirely depends on the context of the sentence as to what the sentence wants to communicate. Let’s take a few simple examples to understand the usage of these phrases.
1. Famine increases the demand for food supplies in the affected area.
Here, the use of “demand for” is correct because the sentence conveys the meaning that when famine takes place, it increases the demand for food supplies. So here we ask ourselves whose demand increases? The answer is of “food supplies”. Hence we say “demand for food supply”.

2. Oil demand in developed country probably peaked in 2005.
In this sentence “demand in” talks about the place where the demand for oil increased. When we say “demand in”, we need to mention the sphere where the demand for an entity has been affected.

Now let’s examine the sentence in question.

Because of less availability and greater demand for scientific research, platinum remains consistently expensive, like gold.
In this sentence, when we say “demand for scientific research”, it means that demand for scientific research has been increased. This is not the intended meaning of the sentence. The intended meaning is that demand for platinum has increased. In what sphere? In the sphere of scientific research. Hence, the correct phrase that should be used in this subject is “demand in” and not “demand for”.
Answer choices C and E correct that error. However, choice E remains incorrect because there is no referent for “that of”. There is nothing in the sentence that “that for” can stand for. Hence choice C is the correct answer.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

hi all,

i thought that the verb tenses decreased and increased were consistent in C which was another reason for me to select C. it means that both the decrease and increase are/have happened at the same time. secondly decreased and greater are not IIel to each other as opposed to decreased and increased.

am i right to assume this? can somebody explain?

Hi there,
If you notice carefully, “decreased” and “increased” are not verbs in this sentence. They are adjectives that are modifying nouns “availability” and “demand” respectively.
Now, the way this sentence has been written, we cannot say that the decrease in availability and increase in demand took place together. All we know is that platinum has decreased in availability and the demand for the metal has increased in research work.
You are correct in saying that “decreased availability” and “increased demand” are parallel.
Hope this helps.
Shraddha

Correct. Though it is an idiomatic usage not to be used much on GMAT now a days, I think it will be useful to share..
In any case, it boils down to understanding the idiomatic usage:
demand FOR X means that X itself is what's desired,
whereas
demand IN X means that something else is demanded to satisfy the interests of field/endeavor X

A- Because of less availability and greater demand for scientific research, platinum remains consistently expensive, like gold.---- unidiomatic
B- Because of less availability and increased demand for scientific research, platinum remains consistently expensive, like that of gold. --- Unidiomatic
C- Because of decreased availability and increased demand in scientific research, platinum remains expensive, like gold. --- correct choice
D- Because of decreased availability and increased demand for scientific research, platinum remains expensive, like gold. -- Unidiomatic
E- Because of decreased availability and greater demand in scientific research, platinum remains at a consistently high price, like that of gold.---like that of has no status. ‘like what of gold’ has no answer

Split #1: demand in vs demand for
demand for is unidiomatic => A, B, and D are wrong

Split #2: Less/decreased availability vs greater/decreased demand
Considering the meaning of sentence, using greater demand & less availability will make mistake

Only choice C is the correct answer

I am afraid something is out of sync with logic in this topic. Let us decide clearly whether the expensiveness of Platinum is an eternal factor or a temporary phenomenaon. .The word consistently seems to indicate that this is an eternal factor rather than a short-term spurt. Therefore, I would tick ‘consistently’ in rather than out.
However, when we call something as a decreased availability, we mean to say that the availably was greater earlier and at this point it has rather decreased from those levels. This is what is out of sync with the professed theme that platinum is generally less available meaning sparsely available.
Of course, one can understand the increased demand in research.

In gist, I would say that platinum has ever been less available and hence less availability suits the context better than decresed availability. Well after dropping choices 2 and 5 for their improper use of that, there is still a problem to find a choice that combines ‘less availability’, ‘demand in’, and consistently expensive.

This is IMO.

The official explanation that choice C brings out a cause and effect relationship is illogical. Please note the word, arguably. It is still debatable whether the town is the best-preserved medieval town. While so, how can we take that it was granted a status of World Heritage. Does anyone give a site a heritage status, because it is still argued to be whether best preserved or not.
In addition, a World Heritage title is given not because a site is well maintained but because it is ancient.

Hi Mike - In option E - Like that of Gold -- What is that referring to?

Dear rakaisraka,

I'm happy to respond.

First of all, I will point out a grammatical nicety in your writing. You asked, "What is that referring to?" This is a sentence that ends with a preposition. This is a gray area in modern grammar. Many intelligent people today would say that this is 100% perfectly fine. A hundred years ago, this wasn't acceptable, and folks who are grammar conservatives (such as myself) still have problem with this. The GMAT tends to be conservative. They never would test this particular point: it never would be the deciding split in a SC question. Nevertheless, when this structure does appear, it almost invariable appears as part of an incorrect choice, a choice is that clearly incorrect for some other reason. I am cautioning you simply so that this is on your radar. When you write your B-school essay, your cover letter for any job, etc. etc. you never know if the person reading it will be grammatically conservative or grammatically liberal. It might be a person who has no problem with a sentence that ends with a preposition, or it might be a person whose opinion of you drops slightly when they see that structure. With all these controversial gray-area structures, it's always good to develop the habit of sticking to the more conservative course as long as you are trying to make a good impression on people, especially people you don't know yet. The more formal, high-spoken way to ask that same question would be, "To what does that refer?" In this case, this is also more concise and more elegant.

The issue of words omitted in the second branch of a parallel structure is hard. See this blog article:
Dropping Common Words in Parallel on the GMAT
It's always hard on the GMAT, because the GMAT will give you the sentence with the common words already missing, and it's up to you to figure out what words were dropped.

It's important to remember that parallelism is not really a grammatical structure. Parallelism is a logical structure, and the grammar's job is to mirror the underlying logic. When you are this situation, think about the logic. Here is the end of (E):
...platinum remains at a consistently high price, like that of gold.
Think about it. The overall comparison relates the two precious metals, platinum (Pt) and gold (Au). The sentence says that platinum has a high price, so it must be true that gold also has a high price (incidentally, that should not be a big surprise if you know anything about the commodities market!) The word "that" stands for the words "the price." Here's a version of (E) with the pronoun replaced:
...platinum remains at a consistently high price, like the price of gold.
The strict comparison is between two prices: the price of Pt and the price of Au. The second price is remaining "consistently high" like the first price.

Does all this make sense?

Mike