comparisons strategy

Question

1) The clothes looked more appealing inside the store than on the racks outside

In the above sentence signal word for comparison is "more than". Here " more appealing " is adjective as it describes noun "clothes".Is that right?.

are " inside the store", "on the racks " parallel in structure.please explain

rjacobsMGMAT · Answer

Hi Tom,

You are correct, those are parallel. I usually think of the comparison signal as "more appealing than." In fact, I generalize this structure as:

(optional "no" or other adjective) + more/less + (optional comparative word) + than

I like baseball   more than   I like hockey. 
 She is   no more beautiful than   I am. 
 The acrobat  is  more talented than   the magician. 
 No less surprising than   the queen's jump  during the opening ceremony was the  Mexican soccer victory  which followed two weeks thereafter.
The purse was  much less expensive   after the sale   than  it was  at the beginning of the season.

Here's your sentence:
 
The clothes looked  more appealing   inside the store   than   on the racks  outside.

Your sentence is notable in that there's a false comparison: we're not actually comparing the word "inside" to the word "outside," although that's what you might expect. "Outside" is just an extra adjective for "racks," and is not notable in terms of the structure of the sentence.

TomB · Answer

Hi rjacobs

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. Can you please explain the following sentence?

1) Thomas is more interested in video games than his girl friend

correct farm :a) Thomas is more interested in video games than his girl friend is

correct farm: b) Thomas is more interested in video games than in his girl friend

Comparison signal: "more interested than"

1) Is "more interested" modifying " video games" and acting as adverb?. Is that right?.

2) In the correct farm a ), the actual sentence is "Thomas is more interested in video games than he is interested in his girl friend". Can you please tell me how to write the second part of the sentence in such a concise way

rjacobsMGMAT · Answer

Thomas is   more interested  in video games  than   his girl friend is. 
 
("in video games" modifies interested and is not part of the comparison, so this is easy to parse.)

Thomas is  more interested   in video games   than   in his girl friend. 
 
This is slightly trickier. This sentence uses an elliptical construction to imply:

Thomas is   more interested   in video games   than    he is  in his girl friend.

That's how I know that "in video games" works a little bit differently here. But I don't need to say "he is" at the end - the meaning is clear without it. All three of the sentences I just wrote are correct.

Also, Thomas's girlfriend should consider her options.

comparisons strategy

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