Like other health care worker, the insurance rates charged dentists

There are no flaws in the copying part, Kidderek. I checked. This question is from the Kaplan 2006 practice tests set.

Here's the OE:
This sentence contains a vague, misleading comparison. The phrase "like other health care workers" is being compared to " the insurance rates charged by dentists". Workers cannot be compared to insurance rates. E corrects the comparison by making it clear that "dentist's insurance rates" are being compared to "those charged other health care workers".

B improves the comparison although the new version is somewhat awkward, but this answer creates a S-V agreement problem. Here the verb "have" no longer agrees with the subject, which has been changed from "insurance rates" to "insurance".

C simply changes "like" to "as" which does not correct the original error. D creates an error by omitting "insurance rates" after dentists.

Matt,
I got it wrong from a similar line of reasoning. But, I think E is, indeed, the best choice.

It is not the rates charged *by* other health care workers and dentists that is being compared here; rather it is the insurance (against malpractice suits and the like) *for* health care workers that is being discussed.

The implied meaning is: Like the insurance rates charged for other health care workers, the insurance rates charged for dentists have skyrocketed in recent years.

This is a bad problem. The sentence marked 'correct' lacks basic parallelism: If the right side is "dentists' (a possessive) health insurance rates", then the left side should be "those of (also a possessive form) other health care workers".

Inversely, if the left side talks about rates charged to workers, then the right side needs to talk about rates charged to dentists.
You can't have "charged" on one side but a possessive on the other side. That's abject non-parallelism.





This is true of all five choices, not just D.





Yes.
The stuff starting with "charged" in E is meant to be a modifier of "those". That modifier—which shouldn't be there in the first place, because it's nonparallel to the other side (see above)—is written really poorly, so I can understand why you've mistaken "charged" for a verb. (A good writer would render this modifier as "charged to [[whoever pays the bill]]".)





Yes. What else could it possibly mean?

E though wordy looks good. Does the right comparison of rates.

maybe its just me but.. honestly..

I have no idea what choice 'E' is saying.. =)

I've yet to figure out the meaning of the sentence. It was either poorly written or copied with flaws.

Are you sure the original question didn't infix the preposition "by" between "charged and other" as indicated above?

I believe E is the correct answer because C completely leaves out the verb "charged", leaving one to question what is being done with the insurance rates.

C is ambiguous. Who is being charged these insurance rates ?

E clarifies that ambiguity.

E. Like those charged other health care workers, dentists' insurance rates

This sentence lacks one word - "by". Kaplan is known to have somewhat low quality questions. So I would not be too nervous about this one.

Like those charged by other health care workers, dentists' insurance rates - would be much better.

in option D, we have a clause after comma- '', ................. have skyrocketed in recent years.''

but 'like' is used to compare nouns?

by the way, what's the intended meaning here? we are comparing insurance rates of two groups ???

"Like those charged other health care workers, dentists' insurance rates"???
Charged with an allegation? Or maybe the healthcare workers were charged upon by someone?
Sounds like nonsense to me honestly.

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RonTargetTestPrep

Had the option E] been:

''Like those of other health care workers, dentists' insurance rates have skyrocketed''

which is similar to the structure below

''Like X, Y have skyrockted''

does it look correct now?


A side question: I see 'Manhatten' prep mocks powered by Kaplan. This is because of the merger I guess.

But before the merger, the Manhatten mocks and Kaplan mocks were separately available. So, the Manhatten mocks are now available in the name of Kaplan mocks? I am just wondering about the availability of those earlier Manhatten mocks

On the same lines, in free trial of TTP, do we get access to TTP mocks?

That comparison structure looks good to me.

As for MPrep's practice tests, they are the same that they have been (I'm not sure if Kaplan's old practice tests are still available, or where). The 'powered by Kaplan' is purely a branding thing, but has not materially changed any of MPrep's products.

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