GMATNinja wrote:
Hopefully these examples will clear things up:
- "The economist predicted the recession." - A "recession" is something that can be predicted, so this is okay.
- "The football player predicted victory." - Again, "victory" is something that can be predicted, so no issue here.
- "The economist predicted the budget." - Um, what does that mean? The economist predicted that a budget would come into existence?? Without additional context, a "budget" isn't really something that, by itself, can be predicted.
- "The economist predicted the budget TO BE $10 million." - This is much better. It probably doesn't make sense to predict "a budget", but it makes perfect sense to predict a budget TO BE some amount.
Does that mean that we should invent a rule stating that "predicted" must always be followed by "to be"? Nope. Instead, you have to think hard about the context in each new, unique sentence and decide what makes the most sense. This is what makes GMAT SC so much fun... I guess?
Hello
GMATNinja , I am sorry for bothering you, but I've read all the comments and I am still confused. I have several questions and I hope you would kindly help me.
1. You mentioned that we need "
TO BE" to make C correct. Similar to "more than it was predicted TO BE", should D be "more than they had predicted TO BE"? Without the "TO BE", D sounds like "they had predicted the budget", which doesn't make sense according your previous comment.
2. I read the gramma book about the comparison. What I learnt is that the second half of a comparison should be parallel with the first half of the comparison, meaning that the structure and form of VERB should be consistent. So I am really confused about the form of comparison in the question. "
the gap will
be $3.7 billion, a billion dollars more than they had predicted just two months ago". In the first half of the comparison, there is a noun "gap", a verb "be", and number, so I would expect a noun or a pronoun in the second half of the comparison as the object. For example,
"more than
[the gap/that] they had predicted just two months ago."
"more than
it was predicted to be two months ago."
Initially I thought the noun or pronoun in the second half is omitted, but after I learnt the "omitted words" in the gramma book, I couldn't find the omission of such nouns. I understand the omission of units, verbs or the same clause as long as there is no ambiguity. For example, I run faster than my brother [
runs] => no ambiguity; I like apple more than Susan => ambiguous. However, the comparison (or omission) in this question doesn't fall into any of the categories mentioned here. Is there any omission in this problem actually? I could find so many questions related to comparison having "more than
that/that of/those ..." in the OA, but why not in this type of comparison?
I read the example you gave in another comment, "Tim picked up one child from day care, one fewer than he should have picked up." I am sorry for being ignorant; I thought it should be "Tim picked up one child from day care, one fewer than
the children he should have picked up.", and somehow the "children" is omitted
Can you please help me understand the comparison here? Also, do you mind recommending me some videos or articles from which I can learn the type of comparison in this problem?
3. I came up with another question, which I thought is a little bit similar to the comparison in this question.
"Scientists have found signs that moving water changed the chemical makeup of the surface of Mars in recent eras and have therefore concluded that the planet's crust harbors up to three times as much water as [
WAS] previously thought." (The OA doesn't have "WAS", but it is in another option)
I am not sure if adding the "WAS" in the second half is wrong, or it is ok to have a "WAS", and Why?
I am sorry again for bringing up so many questions. I think I don't fully understand the comparison. Thanks in advance for your help.
No problem, thanks for the detailed question! This is definitely a tricky one.
The goal of our earlier posts wasn't to show that (C) is WRONG without "to be" and RIGHT with "to be" -- we were simply trying to explain that the meaning of "the budget was predicted" isn't immediately obvious and that, as a result, the meaning of (C) isn't very clear. Deciding between (C) and (D) is more than a simple question of "to be" or not "to be".
Is (C) absolutely WRONG because it breaks some black-and-white rules about comparisons, parallelism, or word omissions (a.k.a. "ellipsis")? No. (D) is a
sentence than (C) because the meaning is clearer and easier to follow.