Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while

Hi Chiranjeevee

There are two reasons why D is correct:

(1) "Last year" is preposition phrase. It CAN'T be compared with a NOUN phrase - "the same number". The question compare "this year" vs. "last year".
If you add auxiliary verb before (after) "last year": ...................the same number as WAS last year .... <== You compare NOUN (airline carriers) vs. PREPOSITION (last year) ==> wrong grammar.

(2) This construction is quite common in English. You're comparing same subject but in two different periods --> You don't need to repeat subject.
Let see an example:
After finding a new job, I make more money than I did last year
However, because of the same subject, you don't need to repeat it. The new sentence is: After finding a new job, I make more money than I didlast year.


**Back to the question. I will plug in D into the question.
Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while keeping overhead low by offering, in terms of flights, the same number as last year but using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

The comparison is between this year vs. last year. The subject of the question is the same. In order to make the sentence clear. I will rewrite it like:
Many airline carriers offer the same number of flights this year as they did last year.

Now, the meaning is clearer but the sentence is wordier. ==> GMAT always prefers concise sentence. ==> The sentence should be: Many airline carriers offer the same number of flights this year as they did last year.

Hope it helps.

I remember "amount vs number" in this way:

The Amount of happiness (uncountable) depends upon the number of hours (countable) of hard work.

Back to ques:
Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while keeping overhead low by offering, in terms of flights,an equal amount as last year, doing so by using larger planes that fly more efficiently.
Equal amount Vs Same number. Compared object is "flights" - countable - so Same number.
A. an equal amount as last year,doing so by - out
B. the same number offered last year - no comparison marker
C. an equal amount offered last year and - out
D. the same number as last year but - good choice
E. an equal number as were offered last year, - construction is not good.

Hope this helps!

Hi Prakashchandra,

When we need to quantify Countable nouns (like children, pens,houses) we use number and when we need to quantify Uncountable nouns (like salt,advice,costs) we use amount
In the sentence above we need to quantify Flights so we use number
Hope it is clear
I think the sentence has a typo: it should be OVERHEADS not overhead,Pls.check.

In D, isn't "same number compared to "last year". It should have been apt if compared with "last year's" or better if "same number as was last year"..


Regards

Argha

for this reason only, i eliminated D and chose E. but none of the options seems fine. Really dont know How "D" is correct.

E. an equal number as were offered last year,
Why is E is wrong?
Becos, ‘an equal number’ is singular and ‘were offered’ is plural.
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If D is the official answer, then this is a lousy question. Whatever manner one may try to justify D as the correct choice by ellipsis or otherwise, D is unfit to be the correct answer as Argha has correctly pointed out. D is the antithesis of proper comparison by matching the number of flights as last year.
To think of ellipsis, the elided part must be present in the verbatim form in the early part. Which is the part that is being elided herein in D is unclear. D is a blatant mis-comparison because of the unnecessary intrusion of the comparator ‘as’. One more potentially dubious meaning of D’s faulty comparison is that ‘the same number’ is compared with what last year offered. In that case, we are wrongly comparing the number of what the airlines are offering with what the last year offered. This is untenable.
B must be the correct answer; it avoids the mis-comparison of using ‘as’ and rightly using a past participle. Also, it may be noted that the comma plus present participle ‘using’ in B modifies the subject of the previous clause and the subject’s action namely the ‘many airlines and their efforts to increase profitability’ and not ‘last year’.
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Can you please explain because it looks to me that B is totally changing the meaning of the original sentence.

Original sentence is conveying that "this year", airline carriers are using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

B is saying: the same number offered last year using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

So, B seems to suggest that "last year", airline carriers were using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

Isn't this an issue?

Also, for D, I wanted to understand if the following is incorrect: I got the same number of marks as last year.

I feel this is correct, because we cannot interpret this as: I got the same number of marks as last year (got marks).

Sukanyar
Hi

Possibly B is missing the finish by a whisker; probably a comma before using would have set the original intent intact.
With regard to the second point: Please look at the following clause:
No father understands the child as much as the mother. This can be interpreted as
1. No father understands the child as much as the mother does (or)
2. No father understands the child as much as he understands the mother.
The point is that there is a potential risk of misinterpretation. The risk of misinterpretation is not so much when you compare one with one's own self. But the problem arises when you compare two different entities.

This what I meant when I said ---One more potentially dubious meaning of D’s faulty comparison is that ‘the same number’ is compared with what last year offered. In that case, we are wrongly comparing the number of what the airlines are offering with what the last year offered. ---
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Thanks. I have edited my above post to fix a typo. Basically, I wanted to say: B seems to suggest that "last year", airline carriers were using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

So, D is - Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while keeping overhead low by offering, in terms of flights, the same number as last year but using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

It is very clear that "the same number" means the same number (of flights).

So, D is - Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while keeping overhead low by offering, in terms of flights, the same number (of flights) as last year but using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

So, it basically is: the same number (of flights) as last year.

Are you suggesting that this can be interpreted that "last year offered flights" (as opposed to "airlines offered flights")? May be I am not understanding your point about ambiguity.

Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while keeping overhead low by offering, in terms of flights, the same number [of flights] as [the number of flights] last year but using larger planes that fly more efficiently.[/color]

What makes this question heavily difficult, especially for non-natives like me, is the amount of omissions in green.

At first sight, one can judge the construction weird, but after plugging in the omissions, it becomes clearer why the correct answer is the correct answer.

by offering X as Y but using

Well, I am far from being an expert, so this is my only explanation and justification.

Is E not also wrong because the modifier after the comma ",using...." modifies incorrectly the clause that comes before it ?

Yes, you are right. Here "using" is wrongly used as a present participle modifier. Option D is the OA. Here "using" is not a present participle modifier, but a gerund parallel to "offering". These two gerunds are joined by the conjunction "but". The structure in D is as follows:

.. by offering but using..

asdfghjklasdfghj

E as expanded

Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while keeping overhead low by offering, in terms of flights, an equal number as were offered last year, using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

You wrote




To delve into this further, can you kindly clarify what exactly is the previous clause you are referring to and what the subject and verb of that clause are.

As far as I see, there is only one clause in the topic namely, " Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability" and the rest are all a bundle of nested modifiers that modify the airline carriers and their efforts to increase profitability in the end.
So, what is the hitch in the modification, please?
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I see what you mean.. What you're saying makes total sense. I can see that using as a VERB-ING modifier for "Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability" makes sense.
So we reject E because of the faults:

1. an equal number and "were" (plural) do not go along together
2. We are using "were" in the answer choice, but we do not have a form of "be" in the part before

Is that correct ? Thanks for the insights, I appreciate them

asdfghjklasdfghj wrote



Yes. You are right..Since the first part is in active voice and the second part in passive voice, this is going against //ism. For this reason, even 'was offered ' might be wrong, strictly speaking. Perhaps one might say,
"Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while keeping overhead low by offering, in terms of flights, an equal number (as) they offered last year, using larger planes that fly more efficiently"
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I feel this is saying that

they offered last year, using larger planes that fly more efficiently

This is suggesting that last year, they used larger planes. The sentence wants to say that this year, they used larger planes.

Is my understanding correct?

I am afraid not. If the larger planes were used last year, then the profitability would have been higher last year. How will they use smaller planes this year and still lift the profitability? It might help to remember that last year essentially modifies the number of flights. That is the difference between setting off with the comma and not setting off, the essence of adverbial modification.
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Many airline carriers are attempting to increase profitability while keeping overhead low by offering, in terms of flights,an equal amount as last year, doing so by using larger planes that fly more efficiently.

A. an equal amount as last year,doing so by
B. the same number offered last year
C. an equal amount offered last year and
D. the same number as last year but
E. an equal number as were offered last year,

Amount:when the entity is not countable or abstract noun.
Number:when the entity is countable
(eg money not countable:amount,Dollars is countable:number)