Harsh2111s wrote:
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Quote:
quote="ugimba"]
Project SC Butler: Day 23: Sentence Correction (SC2)
For SC butler Questions Click HereFreedman’s survey showed that people living in small towns and rural areas consider themselves
no happier than do people living in big cities.
(A) no happier than do people living
(B) not any happier than do people living
(C) not any happier than do people who live
(D) no happier than are people who are living
(E) not as happy as are people who live
GMATNinja,
VeritasKarishma MentorTutoringFreedman’s survey showed that people living in small towns and rural areas consider themselves
no happier than people living in big cities.
Is anything wrong in above sentence ?
I am comparing people living in small towns with people living in big cities.
Good question,
Harsh2111s. As simple as the omission of
do seems, it touches on a few grammatical points. In the original sentence,
do is being used as a
substitute (yes, that is a grammatical term) for
consider themselves. You can argue for
ellipsis, or deletion of such a word, but by doing so, you actually change the meaning of the sentence at hand. Consider:
1)
Freedman’s survey showed that people living in small towns and rural areas consider themselves no happier than do people living in big cities.Interpretation: With
do in the sentence, we are comparing how two different groups of people
consider themselves. The end of the sentence, without the substitute, would read,
than people living in big cities consider themselves.
2)
Freedman’s survey showed that people living in small towns and rural areas consider themselves no happier than people living in big cities.Interpretation: Without
do in the sentence, we are stuck with the musings of a single group of people, those
living in small towns and rural areas. That is, we do not get any considerations from the group of people
living in big cities, so the sentence is conveying that some rural folk are
projecting how their city-dwelling counterparts must feel.
In short, in the sentence at hand, since all five options force us to take into account how
both groups of people think of themselves, we need the auxiliary verb
do. In an isolated sentence outside of the GMAT™, the comparison in 2) above would be fine.
I hope that helps with your question. Keep in mind, you always have to go by what is on the screen, not by what you want to be there. (I remind myself of this from time to time if I get caught up in a Sentence Correction question myself.)
- Andrew