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655-705 Level|   Comparisons|   Meaning/Logical Predication|   Parallelism|   Verb Tense/Form|                  
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 23 Aug 2020, 23:52
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Formatting issues aside, I've always loved this question as a great example of a comparison error.

When a comparison is drawn on a sentence correction question, two major themes should jump out at you:

1) The two things compared must be compared in equivalent form.

Here, we could compare:

Dirt roads to paved roads
Maintaining dirt roads to maintaining paved roads

But comparing "the cost of maintaining dirt roads" to "paved roads" is incorrect - one is a cost, and the other is a road...they could never be alike!

Make sure that, when a comparison is drawn, you check to ensure that the two items are in equivalent form. I like to envision a balance scale from chemistry class as a mental picture. If I'm weighing a substance in a petri dish I must account for the weight of the dish on the other side of the balance! Similarly, if I'm comparing a cost of one item, I have to make sure I compare it directly to the cost of the other.


2) Comparison idioms should be in the right form.

This one doesn't have a mistake, but you should get in the habit of seeing:

"As Many As" or "As Much As" ---> Equality
"So Many That" or "So Much That" ---> Critical Mass (e.g. "there is so much pollution in the air that we can't go outside")
"More Than" or "Less Than" ---> Inequality

An easy way for the testmakers to write a wrong-but-tricky answer is to criss-cross these idioms (e.g. "As many that" or "More...as")


In this case, the comparisons are all off but one:

A) Dirt roads cost vs. Maintaining paved roads
B) Dirt roads cost vs. paved roads do ("do" takes the place of "cost") ---> CORRECT!
C) Maintaining dirt roads costs vs. paved roads cost
D) Maintaining dirt roads costs vs. it does
E) To maintain dirt roads vs. for paved roads


Only B puts each element in the same form, so B is a correct comparison while the others miss the mark.

VeritasKarishma

I got this one correct but was divided on whether the intended meaning could also be something like "maintaining dirt roads" costs twice as much as "making pave roads" then why maintain dirt roads

Hope you'll get my doubt

Thanks in advance!
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You need to keep the meaning aspect in mind - the natural transition for a town will be from dirt road to paved road. Any town will have at least dirt roads (when the path is cleared to allow people to move about). Now the question would be to maintain the dirt road or make a paved road and maintain that.
Perhaps you instinctively understood that - that is why you picked the right option.
Anyway, comparing maintenance cost vs maintenance cost will certainly be right.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 08 Sep 2020, 07:48
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but financially strained townships point out that dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads.

(A) dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads
dirt road is compared to maintaining paved roads. - you have to compare two logical things - this comparison is not logical.

(B) dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do
the cost of maintaining dirt road is compared to the cost of maintaining paved roads. - correct

(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do
maintaining dirt roads and cost of paved roads are compared. Again, you need to compare two logical(equal) elements.

(D) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as it does for paved roads
Maintaining dirt roads costs vs. it does.. what is 'it'? - ambiguous

(E) to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as for paved roads
To maintain dirt roads vs. for paved roads - not comparing similar elements.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 07 Oct 2020, 10:00
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but financially strained townships point out that dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads.

(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do.
In this option if we change do to does then whether this will be correct?

financially strained townships point out that maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads does.=> financially strained townships point out that maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as (maintaining) paved roads does.
Maintaining is common to both clauses, so can be omitted?
Please help.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 07 Oct 2020, 10:37
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but financially strained townships point out that dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads.

(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do.
In this option if we change do to does then whether this will be correct?
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Hi GAURAV1113, that will make option C worse than it already is! Since paved roads is plural, we need a plural verb do and not a singular verb does.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 07 Oct 2020, 11:12
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but financially strained townships point out that dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads.

(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do.
In this option if we change do to does then whether this will be correct?
Hi GAURAV1113, that will make option C worse than it already is! Since paved roads is plural, we need a plural verb do and not a singular verb does.
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Hi EducationAisle, I understand paved roads is Plural but as per my understanding maintaining paved roads will need singular verb does, My question was why we cannot extend "maintaining" to paved roads, It is allowed as per ellipsis.?
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 07 Oct 2020, 22:14
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GAURAV1113
I understand paved roads is Plural but as per my understanding maintaining paved roads will need singular verb does, My question was why we cannot extend "maintaining" to paved roads, It is allowed as per ellipsis.?
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Ok I understand your point Gaurav. So, if the verb is do, it is obviously clear that paved roads is the subject, while if the verb is does, then we interpret that since paved roads is plural, we need to imply that the word maintaining is elided, so that the verb matches with maintaining.

While it might be a tough ask to codify the exact rules here, in comparison questions, it often comes down to choosing the best of the available options; in B, since do very clear stands for cost to maintain, I would still prefer B.
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I understand paved roads is Plural but as per my understanding maintaining paved roads will need singular verb does, My question was why we cannot extend "maintaining" to paved roads, It is allowed as per ellipsis.?
Ok I understand your point Gaurav. So, if the verb is do, it is obviously clear that paved roads is the subject, while if the verb is does, then we interpret that since paved roads is plural, we need to imply that the word maintaining is elided, so that the verb matches with maintaining.

While it might be a tough ask to codify the exact rules here, in comparison questions, it often comes down to choosing the best of the available options; in B, since do very clear stands for cost to maintain, I would still prefer B.
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Many thanks! Also, I went through various threads on forum regarding ellipsis , what i understood is: If application of ellipsis makes sentence ambiguous ( gives possibility to alternate explanation) then we should avoid it.
Option B is better in this regard. Thank you for your time Ashish.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 07 Oct 2020, 23:55
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You're absolutely correct.

Glad to help.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Comparison ambiguity, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 01 Nov 2020, 01:39
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When we say that X costs twice as much as Y (or any other comparison of this form), we need X and Y to be parallel, comparable things. These are most commonly items or activities:

A watch costs twice as much as a belt.
To dine out costs twice as much as to make dinner at home.
Walking will take twice as long as biking.

We can also use this structure to compare two modifiers for the same item or activity:

Admission costs twice as much for adults as for children.

Here, the implied meaning is that admission for adults costs twice as much as admission for children. The meaning is clear enough without our spelling it out this way, but we could choose to say "Admission costs twice as much for adults as it does for children."

Back to E, we can see that the "for paved roads" has no clear parallel in the sentence. In fact, there isn't anything for this modifier to apply to. We need to compare activities (to maintain dirt roads/to maintain paved roads) or costs ("Maintenance costs twice as much for dirt roads as for paved roads"). As it stands, E has no clear meaning.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 06 Nov 2020, 04:58
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Thank you GMATNinja for the nice explanation. I have a silly question- how do we conclude that "do" in option B refers to which verb/verb phrase? I have detailed below in red.
Request experts to please correct if I am missing something here.

GMATNinja
This is all about being supremely literal with comparisons, as we'll discuss in this week’s YouTube webinar. And I don't think that anybody really loves comparisons, so… I dunno, try to enjoy this one anyway.

Quote:
(A) dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads
This is literally saying that dirt roads themselves cost more than maintaining paved roads. That doesn’t work: we either need to compare “maintaining dirt roads” to “maintaining paved roads” or we can compare the two types of roads. But (A) makes no sense in its current form.

Quote:
(B) dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do
This sounds pretty good! The key here is that the word “do” can replace a verb phrase – and in this case, “do” replaces “cost… to maintain.” So this is saying that “dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads [cost to maintain].” Great, that makes sense. Let’s keep (B).
Here, "do" can also refer to "cost" and not "cost to maintain", right? And, in case it refers only to "cost", the sentence is no longer logically parallel as:
"dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads COST". This could mean:
i). dirt roads cost twice to maintain VS the cost of main roads - illogical comparison, right?
ii). dirt roads cost twice to maintain VS paved roads cost [to maintain] - Here, can we consider that "to maintain" is omitted? If yes, how do we decide if it's omitted?
How do we conclude that it refers to "cost to maintain", and not just to "cost".


Quote:
(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do
This is lamentably subtle. Keep in mind that “do” replaces a verb phrase – and “maintaining” is a noun (gerund) in this case, and definitely not a verb. (For more on –ing words, check out this article: https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 39780.html.) So this is literally saying that “maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads [cost].” Now we’re comparing the cost of maintaining dirt roads with the cost of paved roads themselves, and that doesn’t makes sense.

Tricky, but definitely wrong. (C) is gone.

Quote:
(D) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as it does for paved roads
The “it” jumps out at me here. If we’re being charitable, I suppose we could accept the idea that “it” refers back to “maintaining”, since “maintaining” is a noun. So we have “maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as [maintaining] does for paved roads.” Really? I guess that’s not totally illogical, but it’s a muddy mess, and it’s a whole lot less clear than (B). So (D) is out, since (B) is undoubtedly clearer.

Quote:
(E) to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as for paved roads
I don’t see any reason why we would use the infinitive “to maintain” as a noun here. That’s not something that you’ll see very often in correct answers on the GMAT. I’m not 100% certain that it’s absolutely wrong, but it’s definitely inferior to (B).

Just as importantly, if we’re going to use the infinitive “to maintain” as the subject of the clause, then it’s only going to makes sense if the comparison is parallel. Something like “to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as to maintain paved roads” would at least be parallel. (E) in its current form doesn’t make any sense, since “to maintain dirt roads” is compared with just the prepositional phrase “for paved roads.”

So (B) is our winner.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 17 Dec 2020, 12:35
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Quote:
Thank you GMATNinja for the nice explanation. I have a silly question- how do we conclude that "do" in option B refers to which verb/verb phrase? I have detailed below in red.
Request experts to please correct if I am missing something here.
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Not a silly question at all! Whenever you see a helping verb, such as "do," the most logical place to look for the verb it stands for is the first clause in the comparison. Take a simple example:

    Tim eats as much peanut butter out of the feeder as the birds do.


In this case, you can just let your eyes drift backward from "do" until you encounter the verb in the initial clause, "eats." Tim eats as much peanut butter as the birds eat. Pretty straightforward.

However, if the sentence is a little more complicated, and there's a longer verb phrase, it's often fair to assume that the helping verb stands in for that entire phrase. For example:

    Tim wants to eat as much peanut butter as the birds do.

Now, "do" seems to stand in for the full verb phrase, "wants to eat." Tim wants to eat as much peanut butter as the birds want to eat. But even if you missed the infinitive ("to eat") when thinking about what "do" stands in for, you'd be left with the notion that Tim wants to eat as much peanut butter as the birds want. That still seems fine to me. At the very least, it certainly wouldn't be grounds for eliminating an option.

Same deal here. Whether you interpret (B) to mean "dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads cost to maintain," or "dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads cost," the comparison seems logical enough to hang on to the option.

The takeaway: when you see a helping verb such as "do," don't stress about whether it stands in for a lone verb or a full verb phrase. Simply go back to the main verb of the preceding clause. If there's a reasonable way to interpret the "do," move on to other decision points.

I hope that clears things up a bit!
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 27 Apr 2021, 08:44
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Thank you GMATNinja. I get your point. However, isn't there a slight difference between the infinitive in Option B and the infinite in your example? Sharing my 2 cents below:

Tim wants to eat as much peanut butter out of the feeder as the birds do.
Here, even if "do" represents only "want". We can ask, what birds want? Answer: to eat. So, "want to eat" is obvious in this example.

However, in option B,
dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do.
"do" is conveying completely different comparisons when considered without "to maintain".

Case 1 (without "to maintain"): dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads cost.
This implies, the cost of maintenance of dirt road is compared with the cost of paved road. [Isn't this the WRONG comparison?]

Case 2 (with "to maintain"): dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads cost to maintain.
This implies, cost of maintenance of dirt road is compared with the cost of maintenance of paved roads. [Comparison seems perfect.]

GMATNinja
Quote:
Thank you GMATNinja for the nice explanation. I have a silly question- how do we conclude that "do" in option B refers to which verb/verb phrase? I have detailed below in red.
Request experts to please correct if I am missing something here.
Not a silly question at all! Whenever you see a helping verb, such as "do," the most logical place to look for the verb it stands for is the first clause in the comparison. Take a simple example:

    Tim eats as much peanut butter out of the feeder as the birds do.


In this case, you can just let your eyes drift backward from "do" until you encounter the verb in the initial clause, "eats." Tim eats as much peanut butter as the birds eat. Pretty straightforward.

However, if the sentence is a little more complicated, and there's a longer verb phrase, it's often fair to assume that the helping verb stands in for that entire phrase. For example:

    Tim wants to eat as much peanut butter as the birds do.

Now, "do" seems to stand in for the full verb phrase, "wants to eat." Tim wants to eat as much peanut butter as the birds want to eat. But even if you missed the infinitive ("to eat") when thinking about what "do" stands in for, you'd be left with the notion that Tim wants to eat as much peanut butter as the birds want. That still seems fine to me. At the very least, it certainly wouldn't be grounds for eliminating an option.

Same deal here. Whether you interpret (B) to mean "dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads cost to maintain," or "dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads cost," the comparison seems logical enough to hang on to the option.

The takeaway: when you see a helping verb such as "do," don't stress about whether it stands in for a lone verb or a full verb phrase. Simply go back to the main verb of the preceding clause. If there's a reasonable way to interpret the "do," move on to other decision points.

I hope that clears things up a bit!
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 03 May 2021, 13:13
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Thank you GMATNinja. I get your point. However, isn't there a slight difference between the infinitive in Option B and the infinite in your example? Sharing my 2 cents below:

Tim wants to eat as much peanut butter out of the feeder as the birds do.
Here, even if "do" represents only "want". We can ask, what birds want? Answer: to eat. So, "want to eat" is obvious in this example.

However, in option B,
dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do.
"do" is conveying completely different comparisons when considered without "to maintain".

Case 1 (without "to maintain"): dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads cost.
This implies, the cost of maintenance of dirt road is compared with the cost of paved road. [Isn't this the WRONG comparison?]

Case 2 (with "to maintain"): dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads cost to maintain.
This implies, cost of maintenance of dirt road is compared with the cost of maintenance of paved roads. [Comparison seems perfect.]
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I actually think we encounter the same thing in the bird example...

As you said, in the bird example, you have to ask yourself, "What do the birds want?". You filled in the logical answer ("to eat"), but technically you could say, "Well, does that mean that we are comparing how much Tim wants to eat to how much the birds WANT in general (i.e. how much the birds desire any/all foods... and maybe even other non-food things)?" You had to choose between filling in the blank with something logical that was suggested by the context OR filling in the blank with something that, while technically possible, makes absolutely no sense given the context. The same is true in (B).

Also, what does "as much as paved roads cost" actually mean by itself? A paved road isn't something sitting in a store with a price tag, and constructing a paved road involves all sorts of costs. So are we talking about the material costs? The labor costs? The total installation costs? It's the same issue we encounter in the bird example.

In fact, if the sentence did say that the cost of maintaining dirt costs is twice as much as the cost of installing paved roads, then we still wouldn't be sure why dirt roads might be bad for financially strained townships -- what if the cost of maintaining PAVED roads is ten times the cost of installing paved roads? In other words, we wouldn't know how the TOTAL costs of each type compare, and the sentence wouldn't make any sense.

So, we either have to force a completely illogical meaning that goes against the context OR, as you did with the bird example, fill in the blank with the perfectly logical and suggested choice ("to maintain") -- that means that the logical meaning is actually pretty clear, and at the very least we can't eliminate (B).

I hope that helps!
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 31 Aug 2021, 04:25
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but financially strained townships point out that dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads.


(A) dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads

(B) dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do

(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do

(D) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as it does for paved roads

(E) to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as for paved roads


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https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/17/nyregion/dirt-roads-deep-ruts-high-cost-but-status.html

In the beginning, there were dirt roads. In spring, tires got stuck in the mud; in summer, a film of dirt dulled shiny cars. Then there were paved roads, an indisputable sign of progress. Right?

Wrong. Across northern Westchester County and in neighboring Putnam County, dirt road devotees argue that it is worthwhile to save a disappearing network of back roads that evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century. And these advocates -- often affluent commuters to Manhattan, horse farm owners and would-be naturalists -- hold their position even as some officials of financially strapped towns point out that dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do.
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Hi! In this question I understood all the comparison issues in deep. But I got bugged by the fact that there might be a subject verb agreement issue in E which nobody talked about. "to maintain dirts roads COSTS". is there a subject verb error or not? AndrewN IanStewart
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 31 Aug 2021, 06:04
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Hi! In this question I understood all the comparison issues in deep. But I got bugged by the fact that there might be a subject verb agreement issue in E which nobody talked about. "to maintain dirts roads COSTS". is there a subject verb error or not? AndrewN IanStewart
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No, there is no subject-verb error in E. The subject is not the plural "dirt roads". It is the singular "to maintain dirt roads", which you can see is singular by rephrasing it "maintaining dirt roads" or "the maintenance of dirt roads". It's the singular "maintaining" or "maintenance" that is the subject, and it doesn't matter if it says "dirt roads" or "a dirt road" afterwards -- the verb should be singular.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 31 Aug 2021, 06:17
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ritula
Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but financially strained townships point out that dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads.
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(A) dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads
Dirst road has to be compared with paved roads or maintainance of both should happen both of which is not happening therefore out

(B) dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do
The comparison is spot on therefore let us hang on to it

(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do
maintaince of dirt road is compared with paved roads which is not right

(D) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as it does for paved roads
it does isn't addressed therefore out and the comparison is also flawed

(E) to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as for paved roads
Similar flaws as A therefore out

Therefore IMO B
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 04 Sep 2021, 20:20
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Hi GMATNinja,

I have some doubt regarding option C,

Quote:
maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do
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Can maintaining even modify paved roads??

=> maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as [maintaining] paved roads do I know there will be SV error here. But if does is used instead of do, will it be a valid choice??

eg: She plays hockey and tennis. The stem of this is She plays

Won't it apply to the adjectives??

Please throw some light on this.


GMATNinja
This is all about being supremely literal with comparisons, as we'll discuss in this week’s YouTube webinar. And I don't think that anybody really loves comparisons, so… I dunno, try to enjoy this one anyway.

Quote:
(A) dirt roads cost twice as much as maintaining paved roads
This is literally saying that dirt roads themselves cost more than maintaining paved roads. That doesn’t work: we either need to compare “maintaining dirt roads” to “maintaining paved roads” or we can compare the two types of roads. But (A) makes no sense in its current form.

Quote:
(B) dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads do
This sounds pretty good! The key here is that the word “do” can replace a verb phrase – and in this case, “do” replaces “cost… to maintain.” So this is saying that “dirt roads cost twice as much to maintain as paved roads [cost to maintain].” Great, that makes sense. Let’s keep (B).

Quote:
(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do
This is lamentably subtle. Keep in mind that “do” replaces a verb phrase – and “maintaining” is a noun (gerund) in this case, and definitely not a verb. (For more on –ing words, check out this article: https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 39780.html.) So this is literally saying that “maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads [cost].” Now we’re comparing the cost of maintaining dirt roads with the cost of paved roads themselves, and that doesn’t makes sense.

Tricky, but definitely wrong. (C) is gone.

Quote:
(D) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as it does for paved roads
The “it” jumps out at me here. If we’re being charitable, I suppose we could accept the idea that “it” refers back to “maintaining”, since “maintaining” is a noun. So we have “maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as [maintaining] does for paved roads.” Really? I guess that’s not totally illogical, but it’s a muddy mess, and it’s a whole lot less clear than (B). So (D) is out, since (B) is undoubtedly clearer.

Quote:
(E) to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as for paved roads
I don’t see any reason why we would use the infinitive “to maintain” as a noun here. That’s not something that you’ll see very often in correct answers on the GMAT. I’m not 100% certain that it’s absolutely wrong, but it’s definitely inferior to (B).

Just as importantly, if we’re going to use the infinitive “to maintain” as the subject of the clause, then it’s only going to makes sense if the comparison is parallel. Something like “to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as to maintain paved roads” would at least be parallel. (E) in its current form doesn’t make any sense, since “to maintain dirt roads” is compared with just the prepositional phrase “for paved roads.”

So (B) is our winner.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 04 Sep 2021, 22:03
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HarshaBujji

"Maintaining" isn't a modifier here. It's actually a noun that serves as the subject of "costs." Since the noun doesn't occur again (and we can't just say it's implied), then we have to read "paved roads do" as the parallel clause. We're comparing what maintaining costs to what paved roads do, and that doesn't make sense. If the last part said "maintaining paved roads does," it would be fine.
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 28 Oct 2021, 03:00
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Hi,

Apart from the elusive comparison error that is the bread and butter of this GMAT SC Question. Notice something interesting.

(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do

(D) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as it does for paved roads

(E) to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as for paved roads

It's maintaining [adjective] dirt roads [subject of that clause] costs [verb] of the subject.
But, the subject = plural and the verb costs = singular.

We can eliminated C, D, E basis this. Any thoughts?
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Dirt roads may evoke the bucolic simplicity of another century, but fi 28 Oct 2021, 13:05
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Abheek
Hi,

Apart from the elusive comparison error that is the bread and butter of this GMAT SC Question. Notice something interesting.

(C) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as paved roads do

(D) maintaining dirt roads costs twice as much as it does for paved roads

(E) to maintain dirt roads costs twice as much as for paved roads

It's maintaining [adjective] dirt roads [subject of that clause] costs [verb] of the subject.
But, the subject = plural and the verb costs = singular.

We can eliminated C, D, E basis this. Any thoughts?
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As mentioned in this post, "maintaining" and "to maintain" function as nouns here and serve as the singular subjects of the "that" clause. If that's unclear, consider this simple sentence:

    "Maintaining roads is very difficult."

Here, "maintaining" is a noun (specifically a gerund, if you like jargon) and correctly takes a singular verb.

So unfortunately, we can't eliminate (C), (D), or (E) just because of the verb "costs."
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