Local residents claim that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican

varotkorn I'll stand by the idea that "does" isn't strictly necessary. We could say that on purely technical grounds, it prevents the interpretation my colleague Tommy mentioned: that San Antonio has more good Mexican restaurants than it HAS OTHER CITIES. However, this is a very silly construction and nothing about the structure of the sentence pushes us in this direction.

The bigger problem is that without "any other," the sentence could be read to mean that San Antonio has more good restaurants than SOME other cities. In other words, it's just not at the bottom. For instance, would you rather do better on the test than "other students" or than "any other student"? What if you just do better than the students who got 200-300? That would not be so fun . . .

This is the best explanation for why B is better than C.
It's because of meaning, not because of grammar or parallelism.

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So is the sentense : They go there and so does she wrong?

Hello aditijain1507,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your question, the sentence "They go there, and so does she." is a perfectly correct sentence.

The error in Option C has less to do with parallelism and more to do with meaning; the omission of the word "any" in "other cities do" incorrectly implies that San Antonio has more good Mexican American restaurants than some indeterminate number of other American cities do; the intended meaning is that San Antonio has more good Mexican American restaurants than all other American cities do.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

It is easy to eliminate A, D because you need other whenever comparing an item to the rest of the items in the group

E is also wrong since has more good restaurants (a quantity) is being compared to the cities in general….it is not clearly implied if this is being compared to some other cities having good restaurants or all other cities having good restaurants in general, B and C are way better so eliminate E.

Between B and C,
C makes the mistake of not having the correct parallelism, x and y both being singular makes more sense. Also, it doesn’t make much sense to say that one city has more good restaurants than all the other cities have good restaurants, the intended meaning is to stress that SA has more good restaurants than every other city. This eliminates C.

B is the best option since the comparison is clear and you are comparing one singular entity to every other singular entity in the group.

GMATNinja - please do help ok!

Why is option C incorrect?

(C) doesn't have a concrete error, but it's confusing. Take another look.


The phrase "in the United States" seems to be modifying the verb "do." So does this mean that the other cities have restaurants in the United States, but are not themselves in the U.S.? Can Istanbul or Luang Prabang or Lima have a restaurant in Boston? (If it can, sign me up! )

If you read it again, you can figure out that the writer most likely means that the cities are in the U.S, but the modifier placement makes that interpretation unnecessarily tough to see.

Contrast that with (B) in which you get the phrase, "any other city in the United States," so there's no way to misinterpret it. The cities are in the U.S., and that's crystal clear.

Because (C) isn't as clear as (B), (B) is our winner.

The takeaway: sometimes we'll get rid of an answer because it's definitively wrong, and other times we get'll rid of it because there's a better alternative. This one falls into the latter category.

I hope that helps!

Hello,

I have the following query.
Lets put in Choice E:
'San Francisco has more good American Restaurants than other cities in the United States.'

Now there can be two meanings:
'San Francisco has more good American Restaurants than do other cities in the United States.'
'San Francisco has more good American Restaurants than it has other cities in the United States.'
The second meaning is completely illogical. So if we do not use the helping verb 'do' the sentence's meaning stays intact.

Now compared with Choice B, Choice E seems to be more concise and does not have a meaning ambiguity.
This is why Choice E seems better to me.

Could you please explain where I am going wrong?

Regards,
Ankit

Choice E makes a VERY weak statement—basically, it's just saying "...than (some) other cities".
I.e., that statement is true if you can find a couple of cities ANYWHERE in the country that have fewer good Mexican-American restaurants than San Antonio.

It should be clear that the message of choice E isn't what the sentence is intended to say (because it's so weak that it barely says anything!).
But... you're right—the sentence in choice E isn't strictly INCORRECT.
I don't know where this problem came from, but it doesn't meet GMAC's standards.

Hello Anandanwar,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option E slightly alters the meaning of the sentence through its omission of the word "any"; this omission conveys that San Antonio has more good Mexican American restaurants than some other cities in America do; the intended meaning is that San Antonio has more good Mexican American restaurants than all other cities in America do.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than any other city in the United States does.

Concepts tested here: Meaning

A:
1/ This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "any city"; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than any city in the United States, including itself, does; the intended meaning is that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than any city in the United States other than itself, does.

B: Correct.
1/ This answer choice uses the phrase "any other city"; the use of the terms "any" and "other" convey the intended meaning - that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than all cities in the United States, other than itself, do.

C:
1/ This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "other cities"; the omission of the word "any" incorrectly implies that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than some cities in the United States do; the intended meaning is that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than all other cities in the United States do.

D:
1/ This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "any city"; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than any city in the United States, including itself, does; the intended meaning is that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than any city in the United States other than itself, does.

E:
1/ This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "other cities"; the omission of the word "any" incorrectly implies that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than some cities in the United States do; the intended meaning is that San Antonio, Texas, has more good Mexican American restaurants than all other cities in the United States do.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team