energetics wrote:
GMATNinja I could not locate good error pointers in the ACs to test, would you consider eliminating A,C on the basis of meaning (that it's not as clear as B?) or is this a case of correct omission of words? My reasons for eliminating answers from from most confident to least confident.
(D) chores,
compared with a figure of nearly six hours a week in 1997
makes it sound like the "children ... doing chores" is compared with "a figure"
(E) chores, that figure
growing to nearly six hours a week in 1997
wrongly uses simple present to talk about an action finished in the past
(A) chores; by 1997 they had spent
nearly six hours a week"[children] spent six hours a week" doing what?
(C) chores, whereas
nearly six hours a week were spent in 1997
passive voice "were spent" ... by whom? doing what?
(B) chores; by 1997
that figure had grown to nearly six hours a week
"that figure" refers back to the average
"had grown" is correct past perfect form
As a general rule, I wouldn't try to figure out if words in a sentence are missing, because, well, mind-reading is hard.
Instead, we simply want to ask ourselves if the given sentence, as written, clearly conveys a logical and unambiguous meaning. For example, If I write, "Tim has more rainbow-colored parakeets than Nancy," it's true that I left out the word "does" at the end of it, but no reasonable person would misinterpret the sentence to mean that Tim has more parakeets than he has Nancy! This sentence is fine.
But if I write, "Tim loves rainbow-colored parakeets more than Nancy," I could be conveying more than one possible meaning: that Tim loves parakeets more than Tim loves Nancy, or that Tim loves parakeets more than Nancy loves parakeets. So this one is a problem.
That said, I think your explanations are mostly dead-on. I'd add that in (E), we have a faulty VERB-ing modification. The figure didn't grow to 6 hours a week
as a result of children having spent little time doing household chores in the past. Moreover, it sounds as though the growth from less than 2.5 to 6 took place in entirely in 1997. Compare this to the meaning in (B), that the growth had taken place by 1997, possibly over several years. The latter interpretation is more logical.
And for a more on why (A) is wrong, take a look at
my earlier post in this thread.
But you only need one valid reason for eliminating an answer choice, so you did excellent work here.
Nicely done!
Going by the logic of your example, it would be illogical to compare children with figure. Hence, there is not ambiguity and the usage of "compared with" should be correct as it can only be compared with 2.5 hours/week. The reason it can be wrong is becasue of "IN" 1997.