Experiments with wild plant species often seem to show more productivi

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



THE PROMPT


• Comparison words such as more, greater, and higher (as well as less, fewer, smaller, and lower) should be paired with the word than.
→ Comparison of unequal things: X is greater than Y.
→ Comparison of equal things: X is as great as Y.

• More vs. greater/higher?
→ When the noun itself is a measurement or a number, do not use the word more. Use greater or, especially with certain quantities, higher.
Correct: The swimming pool holds a greater volume of water than the bathtub does.
Correct: The number of snow leopards living in the wild is slightly greater now than it was two decades ago.
Correct: The interest rate on cash advances is higher than the rate for regular credit card purchases.
Wrong: The volume of water in the swimming pool is more than it is in the bathtub.
Wrong: The West Coast division of the company must travel more distance to New Orleans than the East Coast division.

• mixture and average are both singular nouns

THE OPTIONS

• comparison words such as more should be paired with than, this way: more X than Y.

• more X . . . relative to Y is not idiomatic

• do not use more with words that are themselves numbers, such as productivity, which is a measurement of the rate of output; in this case, the measurement is of production of new biomass
Greater and higher productivity are both acceptable.
ELIMINATE A


• Correct
→ greater modifies productivity
→ the word than is present
KEEP


• higher should be paired with than

• Higher X . . . As Compared to Y is not idiomatic.

• this point is subtle: from the use of a mixture of species is not as forceful as when a mixture of species is used. The former is driven by prepositions (from, of, of) and nouns (use, mixture, species). The latter is driven by an adverb (when) and a verb (is used). Strong prose depends more on verbs than on nouns. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, do not worry. I point out these subtleties to expose you to minor stylistic differences that SC writers exploit on difficult questions.
ELIMINATE C

• subject/verb disagreement: the singular noun mixture does not agree with the plural verb are
• not parallel
→ when a mixture [the X element in the comparison] and the average of those [the Y element] are not parallel.
ELIMINATE D


• more should not be used to describe productivity.
• subject/verb disagreement: the singular noun average does not agree with the plural verb are
ELIMINATE E

The answer is B.

COMMENTS

swim2109 , welcome to SC Butler.

These answers are very good. Nicely done.