GMAT Club World Cup 2022 (DAY 3): Due in part to the fact that much of

Manhattan Prep Official Explanation:

First Glance: Differences in the answer choices provide clues about what a problem might be testing. Before reading the sentence, glance at the beginning of the underline and down the beginning (just the beginning!) of the five answer choices to look for one early clue as to what this sentence is testing. The presence of than and as indicates that a comparison is taking place.

Issues:

(1) Comparisons
The presence of than and as in the answer choices indicates that a comparison is being made. Look earlier in the sentence: The phrase more often starts the comparison, and comparisons that start with more need to be completed with than. (By contrast, something like as often would need to be followed by as.) Eliminate answers (C) and (E).

(2) Parallelism/Meaning
Next, check that the compared elements are logically parallel to each other and as structurally parallel as possible. The three remaining answer choices offer different elements:
(A) peaceful farmers
(B) for peacefully farming
(D) as peaceful farmers

Find the counterpart of each of these elements by looking for something structurally parallel earlier in the sentence. Answer (A)’s element is a noun, making it structurally parallel to almost any noun that came before it in the sentence. Strip away a lot of the modifiers in the sentence to get down to the core comparison: Vikings are more often thought of as warriors than farmers. This can be interpreted in two ways (italics indicate the two elements being compared):

1. Vikings are thought of as warriors more than Vikings are thought of as farmers.
2. Vikings are thought of as warriors more than farmers are thought of as warriors.

Both of these interpretations are logical, so the comparison is ambiguous. This isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker in harder GMAT questions, so keep (A) for now. However, in the likely event that another choice makes the comparison more definitive, eliminate (A) in favor of that choice.

Answer (B)’s element starts with for, making it structurally parallel to for bringing destruction, but it falters on a meaning level. The word notorious appears immediately before for bringing destruction, so notorious applies to for peacefully farming as well. But it doesn’t make much sense to say that Vikings were notorious for peacefully farming. Eliminate (B).

Answer (D) starts with as, making this element parallel to as fierce, raiding warriors. That phrase follows more often thought of, implying that as fierce, raiding warriors and as peaceful farmers are two ways that people think about Vikings. This fixes the ambiguity encountered in answer (A) by coming down firmly on the side of this first interpretation, so eliminate (A).

The Correct Answer: In this case, than is necessary due to the preceding more often, and as is also necessary to make an unambiguous comparison between as fierce, raiding warriors and as peaceful farmers.