In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeolog

Question

In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeologist Schliemann cut through Troy and uncovered a civilization a thousand years  older as was the city Homer's heroes knew .

(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes

(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes

(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew

(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes

warrior1991 · Accepted Answer

MORE OR OLDER IS ALWAYS FOLLOWED BY THAN

(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew 
 It should be  Older than . Wrong.

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes 
 Correct comparison. A civilization thousand years more ancient than the city . Keep it.

(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes 
 Wrong comparison. A older than B.  A and B must be of same type . Here A is noun but B is verb.

(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew 
 Again A more than B. B is not noun.Incorrect comparison. Wrong

(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes 
 Again A older than B. B is not noun.Incorrect comparison. Wrong

IMO B.

generis · Answer

saurabh9gupta , comparisons can be very confusing. We purposely chose this question because GMAC likes to distract. dave13 already answered your question. I am glad you asked, because many wonder and do not ask. I just wanted to list some resources and a tip. Resources GMATNinja has a two-part series on comparisons that you can find HERE Scroll down to the videos dated 3 Nov 2017 and 9 Nov 2017. • HERE is Series 1 of GMATNinja 's videos • Series 2 videos are HERE. • HERE, too, is a post on comparisons TIP: Get as much exposure to a language pattern as you can. -- make flashcards or use flashcards or both. -- Read correct examples, as many as you can find. Without realizing it consciously, those who are learning a language or learning to parse a language start to absorb patterns In THIS post I mention the three most useful learning strategies according to a comprehensive report based entirely on studies and described in THIS Time article. The article contains a link to the report. Guess what ranked in the top three empirically proven useful techniques for learning? Flashcards. Hope that helps.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Comparisons + Idioms 
 
 .  Terms such as "more" and "less" must have a logical sequence with "than"; in a comparison, "more/less...than" is the idiomatic construction. 
 .  A comparison must always be made between similar elements.

A:  This answer choice incorrectly compares the noun “civilization” to the verb phrase “was the city Homer's heroes knew”; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar elements. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “older as”; remember, terms such as "more" and "less" must have a logical sequence with "than"; in a comparison, "more/less...than" is the idiomatic construction.

B:   Correct . This answer choice correctly compares the noun “civilization” with the noun “the city”. Further, Option B correctly uses the idiomatic construction “ancient + than”. Additionally, Option B is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

C:  This answer choice incorrectly compares the noun “civilization” to the verb phrase “was the city known to Homer's heroes”; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar elements.

D:  This answer choice incorrectly compares the noun “civilization” to the verb phrase “Homer's heroes knew”; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar elements. Further, Option D uses the needlessly wordy phrase “more ancient of a city”, rendering it awkward and redundant.

E:  E. This answer choice incorrectly compares the noun “civilization” to the verb phrase “was the one known to Homer's heroes”; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar elements. Further, Option E uses the needlessly wordy phrase “older of a city”, rendering it awkward and redundant.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

adkikani · Answer

Intended meaning:
The sentence presents a few facts.
The German archaeologist Schliemann was eager to find a city worthy of Priam.
He did two things:
  He cut through Troy  
 He uncovered a civilization a thousand years  older than other cities known to Homer's heroes

Incorrect comparision.
We are comparing a civilization which was a thousand years old with 
verb = was knew
Also a comparative degree such as more / older is always followed by than.
E.g. Francis has more apples than Rhea. (correct)
Francis has more apples as Rhea (incorrect)

Correct, two nouns are compared now: a civilization with a city, which is known to Homer's heroes

Same problem of incorrect comparision of noun vs verb as in (A)
Correct usage of than after more.

Complete mess. Again the modifier ancient refers back to civilization,
but we need to compare two nouns, not a noun and a verb.

Incorrect comparision of verb vs noun

saurabh9gupta · Answer

(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew
--- "than" is missing - out

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes
-- words after "than" -- the city (noun)..
check words before "more" --

"  uncovered a civilization a thousand years  more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes"
i think -- "years" is a Noun and so the comparison is between "years" and "the city"--- illogical

(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes

(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew

(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes

How do you understand the comparison?
I get these types of questions wrong..

I am not able to understand the comparison in each option..

dave13 · Answer

Hi there saurabh9gupta here my explanation not sure if it helps

If you read sentence from the very begining you will see that it starts with noun phrase i guess so

" city worthy of Priam" I will replace this extract from sentence "the German archaeologist Schliemann" with just "archeologist" see below. to make it shorter. the meaning remians the same. So the whole meaning of a sentence is that archelogist was looking for a city . So he discovered a civilization more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes. As you see civilazation refers back the city In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam ,archaeologist cut through Troy and uncovered a civilization a thousand years older as was the city Homer's heroes knew. (A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew (this is not a correct idiom ) as you mentined yoyrself older than is correct (B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes (here we compare " civilization " (noun) to the city ) (C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes ( here you compare civilization to the verb "was" , and that is not correct , cause after "than" noun should be followed) (D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew ( not correct cause comparative adjective "more ancient" should be followed by "than" and not by "of") (E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes ( same issue as in D)

cheers

daagh · Answer

When it comes to referring to civilizations, or things of historical import, then ancient is the word and not old. We use that word to denote things that we can understand mostly through relics because they are deep in the past. 
We mostly refer old to human beings or things which are near our times or stuff of a reasonably comparable timeline. Therefore, I would not say that my President is more ancient than others are unless I mean to ridicule him. 
We will conveniently remove choice A, C, and E, for using wrong diction.

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes --  wrong comparison here. We are comparing civilization with a city.

(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew -- correct choice. ---T he possessive 'more ancient of a city' brings out the parallelism of comparison even.

Perhaps we may be tempted to select B as the correct choice as it is more precise than D. However, we must remember that civilization is only an attribute of a city and attributes must be compared with attributes only. Some might say that D is an awkward comparison and so on. But be that as it may.

Incidentally, this question seems to belong to the previous century and is more ancient or older than I imagined. Any reason for unearthing this?

dave13 · Answer

Oh Hell, i think you can be are right daagh

civilazation more ancient of city hmm BUT daagh yes we are comparing civilization with city in B, AND by civilization, an ancent city is implied. For example: i have been searching for an ancient city since 300 BC

and finally found a civilization more ancient than i ever expected. now in the example above by civilazation is implied city. Ancient city = civilization why not ?

generis · Answer

First, aGordeno , welcome to GMAT Club!

Official Explanation This OE is pretty good. I'll add a few notes because this question is linguistically difficult. In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeologist Schliemann cut through Troy and uncovered a civilization a thousand years older as was the city Homer's heroes knew . Perhaps you have never read or heard of an ancient Greek writer named Homer who wrote The Iliad, downloadable here. Perhaps you have never heard of or seen the film titled Troy, described here. (I give the film a thumbs up!) Who is Priam? Who is Homer? WHAT is this sentence talking about? For correct analyses that include context, read at dave13 's and adkikani 's answers For a correct analysis that does not include context quite as specifically as do the answers immediately above, read warrior1991 's answer I cannot decide whether there is a "best" answer. There are three excellent answers : dave13 , adkikani , and warrior1991 Kudos to all three. Nicely done.

Skywalker18 · Answer

As per the OE, the reason to eliminate options A, C and E is given as "the more ancient civilization continues to be a thousand years more ancient than Troy". So, it is incorrect to use the past tense.
I agree with that. 
But if we ignore the above tense logic issue for the moment, is it okay for an action verb(was in this case) to follow 'than'?

Generally, 'than' is followed by noun? Thus we can discard options in which an action verb follows 'than'?

I know more about Shakespeare than does my highly educated brother. -- 'does' is a helping verb. This statement is okay.

AjiteshArun  ,  GMATNinja  ,  MagooshExpert  ,  GMATGuruNY  ,  VeritasKarishma  ,  VeritasPrepBrian  ,  MartyMurray  ,  RonPurewal  other experts - please enlighten

AjiteshArun · Answer

Although I've never come across a construction in which an action verb swaps places with its subject after  than ,  was  itself is never an action verb. The sentence below with  was  (1) should be read as (2).

1.  X   was   older than   was   Y. 
2.  X   was   older than Y   was   old.

3.  X   was  working  faster than  was  Y. 
4.  X   was  working  faster than Y   was  working .

In (4),  was  itself is not an action verb ( was working  is the full verb).

5.  I   know   more about Shakespeare than   does   my highly educated brother. 
6.  I   know   more about Shakespeare than my highly educated brother   knows   about Shakespeare.

7.  X   works   faster than   does   Y.

in (5) and (7),  does  is a helping verb,  know  is a linking verb, and  works  is an action verb. I can't think of a sentence that would be correct with an actual action verb before its subject after  than .

8.   X works faster than works Y.

Mpuneet · Answer

I understand that B is the best among 5.

However, is the use "more ancient" acceptable

AjiteshArun · Answer

Yes. It's just the comparative (we would not normally go with something like  ancienter ). You can also try this with a word like  difficult :

The last question was a thousand times  more difficult  than the first.

harshbirajdar · Answer

I have seen multiple such instances in which verb is followed by the second comparison noun. Honestly, not able to find a concrete reason to eliminate C.

mSKR · Answer

you can make the sentence in simpler form

Core sentence:
G uncovered place 
OLDER THAN
something

B says: G uncovered place MORE ANCIENT THAN PLACE
C says: G uncovered place OLDER THAN place WAS KNOWN

You can easily figure out that B compares place vs place but C compares Place vs known
In other words
B compares noun vs noun (modifier- Noun modifier)
C compares noun vs clause ( NOUN WAS Modifier)

So B is clear and clean winner.

I hope it helps.

Crytiocanalyst · Answer

The key to cracking the same is getting the right meaning therefore keeping that in mind ]

(A) older as was the city Homer's heroes knew
it intends to say the city that horner knew was older

(B) more ancient than the city known to Homer's heroes
This makes exact sense that the city know to horner's heroes

(C) older than was the city known to Homer's heroes
Ambigious use of than which doesn't help us with the meaning of the sentence

(D) more ancient of a city than Homer's heroes knew
of a city isn't the right use of the words

(E) older of a city than was the one known to Homer's heroes
Same as rge reasoning in D of a city isn't right

Hence IMO D

happypuppy · Answer

Small typo in B's explanation. 'Older' is not used. But it was helpful. Thank you

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  happypuppy ,

We hope this finds you well.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention; the error in our explanation has been rectified.

We are glad that you found our explanation helpful.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Anshul1223333 · Answer

isn't C] make sense logically as to what is the comparison about.

do we literally go into grammer of noun v/s verb when the meaning is clear. or C] creates a meaning error too?

In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeolog

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In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeolog

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