In many job areas the earnings of women are well below that of men in

+1 for D

A) well below that of men in spite of educational differences that are diminishing
- Incorrect. Earnings of women is compared to Earnings of men. Hence, we need 'those' as Earnings is plural.

B) much below that of men's despite educational differences diminishing
- Incorrect. Same as A

C) much below men in spite of diminishing educational differences
- Incorrect. The comparison is flawed here, Earnings are compared to men.

D) well below those of men in spite of diminishing educational differences
- Corrects the error in A.

E) below men's despite their educational differences that are diminishing
- Incorrect. Unnecessary 'their',creating ambiguity, is used.

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The sentence means that there are many fields where both men and women are working, but for the same job, women are paid less than their male counterparts even though the difference in their educational qualifications is diminishing.

We are comparing earnings of women to earnings of men. "The earnings of women" is plural. In A and B, that is incorrect for the same reason. Also in B, that of men's uses double possessive form.

C and E are comparing earnings of women with men which is illogical comparison.

Option D is free of the above errors and logically compares the earnings of women with earnings of men and hence should be the answer.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

This official explanation contains a lot of descriptors that I did not see in posts,
an omission about which I am glad.

I would let these descriptors be your last reasons for eliminating a choice: wordy, awkward, and unclear.

If a test taker cannot explain why a sentence is "wordy," the option should not be discarded.
My additions are in blue text.

• In choice A, the pronoun that does not agree in number with its noun, earnings;
the pronoun that matches earnings is those[/color]
-- the phrasing is wordy
-- "wordy" is not an explanation. "wordy" is an assertion. WHY is a sentence wordy?
MikeScarn , for example, likes the stacked adjectives in one answer and dislikes the that clause in others.
His assessment is correct, a point I explain below.**
-- the phrasing does not convey the sense that diminishing the educational differences between the sexes
would be expected to narrow the gap in earnings.
I would be willing to entertain this assertion if we were told what (A) does convey.
As that assertion stands, I cannot make use of the argument.

• In choice B, that and the possessive men's are faulty
-- that is faulty because "earnings" are plural. As is the case in (A), the correct pronoun is those
-- possessive men's is faulty because it is part of the phrase OF men's.

The 's is redundant. To show whose earnings, use "those [earnings] of men" or "men's earnings."
Incorrect: those [earnings] of men's

-- the phrasing does not convey the sense that diminishing the educational differences between the sexes
would be expected to narrow the gap in earnings.
I would be willing to entertain this assertion if we were told what (A) does convey.
As that assertion stands, I cannot make use of the argument.
-- much below is less idiomatic than well below
-- the sentence with (B) is awkward. Why?

• Choices C illogically compares the earnings of women to the word men rather than
to the parallel phrase the earnings of men

• In choice E
-- their seems to refer to earnings
-- men's is not parallel with of women, and
-- the phrasing is unclear.
Which phrasing? What is unclear? Why?

• Choice D is best
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First, welcome to GMAT Club viitalik !
And MikeScarn , glad to see you wander this way.

In my first post, partly in red, I wrote that answers must include the meaning of the sentence.

In a separate post, I repeated the instructions.
If you failed to include the meaning of the sentence, you were ineligible for kudos.

daagh , I've been wanting to highlight a phrase I admire from the very first post of this series.

"I am removing E for its brazen fragmentation."

I laughed admiringly at your originality.
My thanks to you for serving up two perfectly pitched words.
(And many more than that in thousands of posts.)

Prateekj05 - the way you explained meaning set a good example.
You found a way to rearrange the words
and to include the word "job." Both of those choices conveyed the meaning in your own words.
You have one error, however, and the error is an easy one to make.
You mistook "men's" for "men."
The error in E is not the same as that in C.

MikeScarn,
Very well done.

Most posts are very good to excellent.
But . . .

Best post goes to MikeScarn
Thank you, all!


**Pretend that A has the correct pronoun, those. We'll set it next to correct answer D.

Option A: ... earnings of women are well below those of men in spite of educational differences that are diminishing between the sexes.

Option D: . . .earnings of women are well below those of men in spite of diminishing educational differences between the sexes.

Is (D) better? Yes. "diminishing" as an adjective that precedes differences is more effective than the clause "that are diminishing."
1) in (D) fewer words have exactly the same meaning
2) (D) avoids two "are" verbs. I do not reject passive voice reflexively (automatically). But one inert (non-action) verb—"are"—is enough.
3) back-to-back adjectives leave the emphasis at the end of the sentence. That placement accords with the intention to highlight the gap.
(Emphasis in most English sentences comes at the end.)

A reminder about BEST ANSWER or EXCELLENT ANSWER:
please include the meaning of the sentence in your answer

You may edit responses at any time until the official answer is revealed at 8:59 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on November 20.

Of course, you may decide that you want only to post analysis. Totally fine.

The sentence aims to compare the salary of women and men in the first place.
Afterwards, the educational differences are compared.

Neither aspect of the sentences is trying to compare men to women in general, however, this exact wrong comparison (men to women) is the main issue that unites the wrong answer choices.

The only sentence that compares salary to salary and education to education is the one in AC D!

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Chris

The passage wants to highlight that thou women are bucking up and fast catching up men in educational standards. Still, women's salaries are not catching u as fast.

The important grammar point is to note is that the earnings are plurals and another plural pronoun must be used to match the plural.

In many job areas, the earnings of women are well below that of men in spite of educational differences that are diminishing between the sexes.

A) well below that of men in spite of educational differences that are diminishing -- it should be well below those of men

B) much below that of men's despite educational differences diminishing-- that of men's is redundant

C) much below men in spite of diminishing educational differences ---- comparison of below men is a bad comparison between earnings and men

D) well below those of men in spite of diminishing educational differences -- correct choice.

E) below men's despite their educational differences that are diminishing-- some ambiguity exists about the reference for 'their

I have a question. Can 'the' be used in such a manner to form a plural subject??
Isn't it that the is used for a specific thing.?

Any comments.. Please enlighten.

The split is between that,those and men's - since earnings+women should be followed by Plural pronoun "those" and non possessive form of men.

Something that I would like to point out here regarding E. Aside from 'their', it's main issue is that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Read literally, the sentence is saying "educational differences that are diminishing BETWEEN THE SEXES. Try reading that out loud. Sounds terrible.

In many job areas, the earnings of women are well below that of men in spite of educational differences that are diminishing between the sexes.

A) well below that of men in spite of educational differences that are diminishing -wrong pronoun

B) much below that of men's despite educational differences diminishing-wrong pronoun

C) much below men in spite of diminishing educational differences -improper comparison

D) well below those of men in spite of diminishing educational differences-right pronoun usage those has proper antecedent earnings

E) below men's despite their educational differences that are diminishing-wordy

Even though it is an official question, should it not use "than"?
well below than those of men

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