Most Corporations pay at least twice as much to full-time employees

Question

Most Corporations pay at least twice as much to full-time employees, if the value of benefits, sick days, and paid vacation days  are included in earnings, than  to part-time employees, whose hourly wages are often higher than those of their full-time colleagues.

(A) are included in earnings, than 
(B) are included in earnings, as 
(C) is included in earnings, than they pay 
(D) is included in earnings, as is paid 
(E) is included in earnings, as they pay

ok i gave it a glance n' got this one wrong.
Pls somebody explain I chose ARE over IS b'coz three sublects are joined with an "and"..doesnt this requre a plural verb?

bhanushalinikhil · Accepted Answer

This is what GMAT does. It plays tricks with you. First of all, there is some modification in question. the underlined part starts from a differently. Here is the question : Most Corporations pay at least twice as much to full-time employees, if the value of benefits, sick days, and paid vacation days are included in earnings, than to part-time employees, whose hourly wages are often higher than those of their full-time colleagues Now, to solve this one, the first thing you need to look is for the idiom "as much.... as" to complete. Lets look at the options. Clearly, we can eliminate A & C. Now, next would be to look at the verbs. Here, the GMAT tricks with giving both "are" and "is in option. The way to find the best answer is to see subject verb agreement. Here, the verb is for subject "value" which is singular. Hence, Option B is eliminated. Option D unnecessarily changes the tense to a perfect tense. Option E maintains the tense (simple past) as well the numbers part (Many Corporations) by rightly using " they pay ". Long one eh! Hope it helps.

dolly12 · Answer

"Value of Benefits" is singular. of benefits is a middleman. Get rid of this.

1. That expalains why 'IS'.

2. As needs to be completed by as.

3. Because pay is compared. I will pick up. "They pay"

'E' is my pick..

What is the OA?

adamv30 · Answer

IMO E

at least as much to X as to Y

The s/v agreement: the value....is

gmataspirant2009 · Answer

I think "they pay" is not required in option E. Although having it does not cause any harm. What you say?

Romasamara · Answer

I choose E:

1) as mush ... as
2) value ... is
3) parallelism: pay...pay

silasaaa2 · Answer

Value is singular so is over are so ans is E

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anordinaryguy · Answer

Most Corporations pay at least twice as much to  full-time employees , if the value of  benefits, sick days, and paid vacation days    is included in earnings,  as   they pay    to  part-time employees, whose hourly wages are often higher than those of their full-time colleagues.

Although E is the better than others, the use of 'they pay' is nothing but breaking the parallelism of "they pay twice  As much to A as (they pay) to B "

rose01 · Answer

between D and E, I picked D

I wonder why is E not considered pronoun ambiguous, since 'they' can refer to both corporations and employees.

Debayandc · Answer

Isn't the correct antecedent of "they " is ambiguous here, because it may also be used to modify plural "employees" ?? Please guide?

kinshuk97gupta · Answer

'as much as' is the right idiom so option a and c can be eliminated. Subject is 'value of benefits', which is singular so 'is should be used. on this basis option b can be eliminated. 'As much as to full employees is not parallel to 'as is paid'. Therefore option d can be eliminated.

SHIRSENDU · Answer

I suppose there is some ambiguity with the antecedent they. It may also modify "employees" . Please suggest.

Kshitij609 · Answer

It's a general understanding that corporations will be paying and not the employees.

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luksri35 · Answer

in an expression "as much X as Y", X and Y should be parallel. But in the OA, i dont see this parallelism exists.

Mona2019 · Answer

the OA says:
They pay as much to x as they pay to Y. 
so it is maintaining parallelism.

Bambi2021 · Answer

This damn verb after a laundry list. Is there any conclusive clue on how to handle this situation?

In the following example, a laundry list took plural verb:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/bluegrass-mu ... 69382.html

"Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, whose repertory, views on musical collaboration, and vocal style were influential on generations of bluegrass artists..."

The only difference I see is that ONE of the items in this list is plural: "views on musical collaboration". Can I conclude that if one of the items is plural, we go for a plural verb? And if every item is singular, we go for a singular verb?

Posted from my mobile device

Edit: According to the following debate, proximity agreement seems to be the recommendation. The verb should agree with the first item in a list. Unfortunately, in the official question above, this is not the case.
https://english.stackexchange.com/quest ... ingle-verb

Edit 2: According to the following post by mikemcgarry, "The AND Rule" says that the subject of this sentence takes plural verb, that is, regardless of the fact that all of the nouns in the list are singular.
https://magoosh.com/gmat/compound-subje ... e-phrases/

In conclusion, the OA given here is not correct.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  aryamaagarwal ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the use of the passive construction "as is paid" in Option D makes it inferior to Option E, which uses the active construction "as they pay".

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

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

The only reasonable interpretation of the sentence is that corporations pay twice as much total compensation to their FT employees as they do to their PT employees
Not only does "...as is paid..." break parallelism with the first part, but, the departure from the active-voice construction with subject "most corporations", into the passive voice, actually implies that we're now talking about compensation paid by someone/something OTHER than most corporations—which doesn't make sense.

Still, I doubt that this is an official problem. It   should   be very plain that the meaning of the sentence is to compare two levels of total compensation paid by the same corporations, but GMAC's problems will make unreasonable interpretations wrong for objective reasons as well.

Krishnahelps · Answer

Hi,

A quick question: If the sentence were-> The resolution that X law will benefit the country and that Y law should be abandoned are/is correct. Here-> should we use singular verb or plural verb? Since that is not a preposition and the sentence is also joined by an 'and', I am confused about the verb to be used. Please help here.

Thank you in advance!

Abolnasr · Answer

#1 split: is Vs. are
is wins, because value is singular
#2 split: than Vs. as
as wins, idiom
#3 split: is paid Vs. they pay
they pay wins, no need for a passive voice (weaker)

Most Corporations pay at least twice as much to full-time employees

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Most Corporations pay at least twice as much to full-time employees

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