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Comparisons - MGMAT Problem Set Question

alexBLR

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Here is on of the practice questions in MGMAT SC Guide.

If the sentence is fine, write correct. If not, correct the errors in the sentence. For an ambigguous sentence, express each possible meaning of the sentence with a correct sentence of your own:

Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company.

The SC Guide states that this sentnce is structured correctly. I disagree. What is your thoughts, and why?

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Which part do you object to? Would this be more acceptable?

Because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company, Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee.

alexBLR

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esledge

Which part do you object to? Would this be more acceptable?

Because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company, Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee.

No, my concern is with parallelism of the

Quote:

works harder

and

Quote:

more creatively

...

swethar

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alexBLR

esledge

Which part do you object to? Would this be more acceptable?

Because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company, Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee.

No, my concern is with parallelism of the

Quote:

works harder

and

Quote:

more creatively

...

I think there is parallelism here -- there is no word like creativer or something goofy. It has top be more creative!

hard .. harder... hardest
creative .. more creative .. most creative

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Yo Alex man, remember these important rules from the same SC book man!!!!

1) "And" is only a conjunction, joins either nouns or actions being performed by those nouns.
2) Renders plurality, most other conjunctions don't do that.
3) Parallelism is of two types, compare and contrast, and list of things.
4) In lists of things, what follows #2 should be like #2. #1 is still independent.
Ex: I like to walk than running or swim - incorrect. I like to walk than running or swimming - correct (bad example yet, I hope my point is driven!!!)

In the sentence you presented about Hugo, only two things are discussed, parallelism cannot exist there.

esledge

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BarneyStinson

4) In lists of things, what follows #2 should be like #2. #1 is still independent.
Ex: I like to walk than running or swim - incorrect. I like to walk than running or swimming - correct (bad example yet, I hope my point is driven!!!)

In the sentence you presented about Hugo, only two things are discussed, parallelism cannot exist there.

Watch out, I think your #4 may be a misinterpretation of a rule. You definitely can have parallelism between only two things. As evidence, here's a sentence with only two things that breaks parallelism:

I enjoy ice cream and to run.
Noun does not equal infinitive. This creates a problem because the sentence is set up to be logically completed by a noun: I enjoy _____. You have to be able to put both of the "endings" after the first part of the sentence.

I think you may be recalling situations like this:
I like to eat ice cream and run.
+ We don't have to repeat the "to" for the 2nd infinitive, as it "distributes" (to use a math term) to both bolded words.
+ It's not a problem that "to eat" is followed by an object, but "(to) run" isn't. Maybe I only like to eat ice cream, not other foods. But I like to run in general, not just to certain places or in certain ways. If so, there's a legitimate reason for the words that follow the verbs to differ. The only requirement is that the first part of the parallel structure matches.

swethar

I think there is parallelism here -- there is no word like creativer or something goofy. It has top be more creative!

hard .. harder... hardest
creative .. more creative .. most creative

Nice! It's parallelism between two comparatives.

Some comparatives can be phrased either way (e.g. funnier = more funny). So for the record, I think either of these would pass the parallelism test:
(1) He is taller and funnier than his brother.
(2) He is taller and more funny than his brother.

(1) would probably be slightly prefered as it is a stricter "match" (both -er comparatives), and has fewer words.

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14 Aug 2012, 20:59

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Hi

1) Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company.

a) is comparison between Hugos work and anyone in the company?

b) we are comparing hugo work with everyone in the company then we need "superlative here instead of comparative. Is that right.

please explain

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Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company.

Compound comparison signal is "harder than" and "more creatively than" - this is fine, some comparatives are single words ("harder") and some require the word "more" ("more creatively").

We are comparing Hugo (with the pronoun "he") to anyone else. We don't need a superlative because "anyone" is singular - technically, we're only comparing Hugo to one person at a time. Plus, superlatives only work within the group - i.e. we'd have to say something like "Hugo works the hardest and most creatively out of everyone in the company" (NOT "everyone else in the company") if we wanted to use the superlative.

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Hi

1) Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company.

comparison signal: "harder than", " more creatively than". The words" harder, creatively" modifying "works". so we are comparing work of hugo with anyone else in the company. where am i missing?. please explain.

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13 Aug 2017, 18:47

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Here is one of the practice questions in MGMAT SC Guide (Chap 6).

If the sentence is fine, write correct. If not, correct the errors in the sentence. For an ambiguous sentence, express each possible meaning of the sentence with a correct sentence of your own:

Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company.

The SC Guide states that this sentence is structured correctly.

I feel the correct version should be "Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and is more creative than anyone else in the company"

Reason : creativity is a more of a personality trait and hence it is not correct to say "Hugo works more creatively". "Hugo is more creative" feels right to me. Thoughts ?

Thanks !

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13 Aug 2017, 20:15

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srinivasosuri

I think both are grammatically correct. "Huge works more creatively" describes how Hugo works while "Huge is more creative" describes his personality. There is a slight difference in meaning since a person can work creatively but may not be creative as a whole. On the actual GMAT, there would be at least 1 more difference between the two choices that would include a grammatical mistake.

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14 Aug 2017, 06:41

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"Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company"

The MGMAT SC Guide states that this sentence is structured correctly.

I feel the correct version should be "Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and is more creative than anyone else in the company"

Reason : creativity is a more of a personality trait and hence it is not correct to say "Hugo works more creatively". "Hugo is more creative" feels right to me.

Thoughts ?

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15 Aug 2017, 13:50

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It's fine to say that someone works 'creatively' (you could also say that a child 'plays creatively', or that a performance was 'directed creatively', etc.)

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24 Aug 2017, 09:36

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So this is from the MGMAT Sentence Correction book but I fail to understand how this sentence is correct when the comparison is between an employee's attributes to other employees attributes yet this sentence is correct as per MGMAT.

"Hugo is widely acknowledged to be our best employee, because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company".

Shouldn't this instead be - because he works harder and more creatively than DOES anyone else in the company??

Trying to understand what I'm missing here.

Thanks,

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SKas07

Just my 2 cents : I think we can definitely understand what the sentence tells us about. No ambiguity even when you don't write down the "DOES".

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SKas07

Dear SKas07 , you might check this following link : https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/repeating-verb-phrases-on-the-gmat/
Coincidently this morning I read about this wonderful explanation, I think it can answer your question.

Good luck

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So, on MGMAT prep page 100, a question asks whether "Hugo is widely acknowledged as our best employee because he works harder and more creatively than anyone else in the company" is correct.

I thought it should have been "he works harder and more creatively than anyone else DID in the company" but the book says the original is good.

I saw some other examples that did require the latter part of a comparative structure to match the action. So where do we draw the line?

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