In 2013, more than three times as many serious automobile accidents we

I am going to go with A.

"...serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers..." (1) under the age of 20....(2) over the age of 20

The comparison is between these 2 age groups. "A" clearly shows that

A) than

B) than caused : doesn't make sense, "than caused over it?"

C) than were caused:Same doesn't make sense

D) than had been caused: totally senseless

E) than there were caused: againnn a meaningless choice

Hence A

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Note: This OE is for the edited version of the question. While I was splicing two questions, I erred.


This sentence appears short and perhaps even clear-cut.

On the other hand, after you memorize 13,035 idioms and 500 grammar rules (don't do either, please), this question might start to seem tricky.

This trickiness is not helped when the, ahem, transcriber, who was trying to construct a good question for you, spliced two questions incorrectly.
[LARGE SWEAR WORD.]
Thank goodness for JonShukhrat , because I haven't had time to check the boards.

• Which items are involved in this comparison?
Are automobile accidents being compared to drivers?
Are drivers being compared to other drivers?
Or are drivers being compared to the ages of other drivers?

None of the above.

The sentence compares drivers under the age of 20 to drivers over the age of 20.

• How do we know which items are being compared?

→ look at the word(s) to the right of than.
→ we see it
Look at the LHS, before than.
→ On the other side of the comparison only one noun is singular.
→ the singular pronoun it must refer to the age of 20

So we have
In 2013, many more serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than over it [the age of 20].

If I were to flesh this sentence out, I would write:
In 2013, many more serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than were caused by drivers over the age of 20.

The right hand element of the comparison is the age of 20 ( = it).

Hundreds of threads are dedicated to parallelism and ellipsis or substitution.
As JonShukhrat notes, three official questions [SPOILER ALERT] that are similar to this one can
A similar official question is here, here, and here

Ron Purewal describes a couple of fairly similar question here.

• Split #1: Obvious lack of parallelism: D and E

The RHS of D is than there were caused over it.
→ on the LHS of than in (D) we do not find any there were structure to which this option would be parallel.
→ Nor could we find any; the underlined portion already contains the passive construction, were caused . . . than
The LHS does not use there were as does the RHS. Not parallel.

Option E, than had been caused, lacks verb parallelism.
→ No reason exists to switch tenses to past perfect, the past of the past
→ The sentence is talking about two sets of data from the same year; the two sets of crashes happened during the same time period.
The use of past perfect is not parallel with were caused by

Eliminate D and E

• Split #2 - Perhaps less obvious lack of parallelism: B and C

In the end, we need to be comparing drivers under the age of 20 to drivers over the age of 20

→ Option B fails to make this comparison
(B): In 2013, many more serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than caused over it.
→ now the RHS is caused over [the age of 20]
→ the LHS and RHS are not parallel.
it = drivers over the age of 20 = drivers ABC
the pertinent part of the sentence: ... more accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than caused over the age of 20.
I don't even know what "caused over the age of 20" means in the context of this sentence.
The accidents were caused over the drivers?
Option B makes no sense.

(C) looks promising but fails
→ In 2013, many more serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than were caused over it
Back to our sentence:
In 2013, many more serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than were caused over [the age of 20].
Because we have included the verb but skipped the "by drivers" part, again, it sounds as though the accidents are in an argument with one another about ("over") "the age of 20"?
Takeaway: Make comparisons analysis as simple as possible.
Option A, which seemed a bit odd at the time, maintains the integrity of the logic of the sentence.

The correct answer is A.

Notes

I have corrected the error I created when I spliced two sentences together.
You should never use as . . . than.
(The playing field was somewhat level because every option contains than.

COMMENTS

ShreyKapil08 , welcome to SC Butler.

Wanting to give you all a good question, I took parts of two different questions and put them together

Well handled, everyone.
Kudos to all.
JonShukhrat , thank you for helping—brilliantly, I might add.
Please add a quick analysis or POE at the top of your answer because I have bumped you to Best Community Reply.

IMO A is the best choice.

Here we are comparing the ages of the drivers.
We will require than.


A) than

Correct.
It correctly compares the age of drivers.

B) than caused
Incorrect.
than caused what?Accidents .
No,we are comparing ages here.
This distorts the meaning of the sentence.


C) than were caused
Incorrect
Distorts the meaning as in B using a different tense won't change a thing.

D) than had been caused
Incorrect.
Sameas C

E) than there were caused
Incorrect
Same as C.

Posted from my mobile device

In 2013, more than three times as many serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than over it.

A) than
here, "than" is correctly used to compare between drivers under the age of 20 and over the age of 20. Also, saying "than over it" is not ambiguous since we only have "age" as a singular noun here, so "it" can only refer to age.
B) than caused

C) than were caused

D) than had been caused

E) than there were caused

Answers B, C, D and E just sound wrong mainly because it makes the sentence sound very unclear. Unfortunately, I am not able to specifically disect every answer and state why each of these are wrong. However, it is clear in D that "had been" is unnecessary because we are are comparing statistics of two different age groups gathered from the same years.

My answer here is A. I noticed often times that with these type of SC, the most simple answer is usually the right one.

Also, can anyone explain why in this context, saying "THAN" in the end is correct? I saw many examples in which the correct structure would be e.g. "Mike likes to eat more than three as many cookies AS Maria". How come in this GMAT question, we are using THAN instead?

IMO A is the correct answer.

This question compares "under the age of 20" and "over it". "Over it" here means over the age of 20. Therefore the original sentence is correct.

I eliminate other options from B to E because they are all unclear in meaning.

The two parallel comparisons here would be under the age of 20 and over the age of 20.

In 2013, more than three times as many serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than over it.

A) than - Concise. Correct.

B) than caused - Incorrect.

C) than were caused - Incorrect.

D) than had been caused - 'had' is wrong. Incorrect.

E) than there were caused - 'there' is awkward. Incorrect.

Hence, the answer is Option (A).

In 2013, more than three times as many serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than over it.

POE:
Stop sign- more than, it is a comparison question. We are comparing ages here.
Eliminate (B), (C), (D) & (E).

A) than - CORRECT|

B) than caused

C) than were caused

D) than had been caused

E) than there were caused

The official explanation is here.

generis, what is the source of this question? I found a similar question in Erica L Meltzer's GMAT SC guide. She structures the question a tad bit differently though: In 2013, more than three times as many serious automobile accidents were caused by drivers under the age of 20 than over it. (pg 113, 'updated for 2021' edition). She then gives the following answer choices :

A) than
B) than caused
c) than were caused
d) than there were caused
e) than had been caused.

Her answer is A. But I think there is something odd about it. I think it should be "as over it", because "three times as many...as" seems to be the right construction. Please let me know what you think.

Thank you.

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.