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555-605 Level|   Comparisons|   Idioms/Diction/Redundancy|   Meaning/Logical Predication|                     
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 18 Jul 2019, 17:29
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I do not understand why option E is not correct, and making a comparison with the following question, why the option with the "those of" is correct in this new question?
2018 book question: 758
Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now than a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raised corn and soybean prices.
A. than a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raised
B. than those of a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raising CORRECT
C. than a year ago and are going down, despite floods in the Midwest and drought in the South, and are hurting crops and therefore raising
D. as those of a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South hurt crops and therefore raise
E. as they were a year ago and are going down, despite floods in the Midwest and drought in the South, and are hurting crops and therefore raising
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 26 Jul 2019, 17:41
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LinaZ
I do not understand why option E is not correct, and making a comparison with the following question, why the option with the "those of" is correct in this new question?
2018 book question: 758
Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now than a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raised corn and soybean prices.
A. than a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raised
B. than those of a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raising CORRECT
C. than a year ago and are going down, despite floods in the Midwest and drought in the South, and are hurting crops and therefore raising
D. as those of a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South hurt crops and therefore raise
E. as they were a year ago and are going down, despite floods in the Midwest and drought in the South, and are hurting crops and therefore raising
Show more
Excellent question! I don't think the comparison in (E) is wrong, necessarily. There are two far more conspicuous errors.

First, take a look at (E) again:

    "Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now as..."

The phrase "higher... than" is correct, but "higher...as" is an idiomatic error. That's enough to give (E) the boot.

But imagine that you didn't see the idiom issue. Notice that we also have the parallel marker "and." This should connect similar forms, so when we see "and are hurting crops" in (E), this verb phrase appears to be parallel to "are going down."

But now we have the following:

    "they [the prices]....are going down....and are hurting crops..."

The prices aren't hurting crops! It makes far more sense to write that floods and drought are the culprits, as (B) suggests, so (E) has a logical error as well.

I hope that helps!
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 11 Jun 2020, 12:10
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GMATNinja
The heart of this question is that we’re trying to compare the fact that the newspapers had a lower circulation “in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996” than… well, we’re trying to compare the circulation in one period to the circulation “in a similar period”, so that should lead us to the right answer pretty quickly.

Quote:
(A) a similar period
The comparison isn’t quite right here. The newspapers “had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.” Nope, we would need to say that the circulation was lower in a similar period for this to make sense.

(A) is out.

Quote:
(B) a similar period’s
(B) basically gives us the same mistake as (A), except that now “period’s” is possessive. I guess it’s trying to possess “circulation”? Can a “period” possess “circulation”? Seems wacky to me.

Even if we give it the benefit of the doubt, that leaves us with “… newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period’s circulation a year earlier.” That’s not completely illogical, I guess, but it doesn’t cut to the heart of the comparison – we’re trying to emphasize the difference in circulation in the two periods. And that possessive thing still strikes me as weird.

If you really wanted to be conservative, you could keep (B), but we’ll have a better option in a moment.

Quote:
(C) in a similar period
This is about as clear as it can get: “… newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than in a similar period a year earlier.” That cleanly compares the circulation in one period with circulation in another.

So let’s keep (C).

Quote:
(D) that in a similar period
In this context, “that” is trying to act as a singular pronoun. (More on the GMAT’s many uses of “that” in this article.) I guess “that” refers back to circulation, so that gives us: “… newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than the circulation in a similar period a year earlier.”

That’s not necessarily illogical, but it’s a waste of words. (C) is more succinct, and I can’t figure out why we would need to repeat the word “circulation” – or a pronoun that refers back to the word “circulation” – in this sentence.

So (C) is still better than (D).

Quote:
(E) that of a similar period
And (E) is just a crappier version of (D). There’s no need to include the word “that” here, but it also doesn’t make sense to talk about “the circulation of a similar period.” We could talk about “the circulation of a newspaper”, because the newspaper itself “circulates” (i.e., the newspaper is distributed among the population), but we wouldn’t circulate “a period.”

So (E) is out, and we’re left with (C).
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Hi GMATNinja,

Can't we assume that "in" is implied in option A as part of ellipses?
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 05 Jul 2020, 17:39
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shanks2020

Hi GMATNinja,

Can't we assume that "in" is implied in option A as part of ellipses?
Show more
Omitting the "in" allows us to interpret the sentence in an illogical way:

  • "Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation {...} than a similar period a year earlier." - This essentially boils down to the "[X] had lower circulation than [Y]," and it seems like we are comparing the circulation of X ("most of the country's biggest daily newspapers") to the circulation of Y ("a similar period").
  • But we actually want to compare X's circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 to X's circulation in a similar period.
  • Is (A) okay if we assume that there is an implied "in" after "than"? Well, yes. Trouble is, if the reader doesn't make that assumption, the sentence doesn't make any sense.

So we have to choose between (A) -- an option that COULD make sense if read one way and not another -- and (C), an option that has only one interpretation. Since the only reasonable interpretation of (C) makes perfect sense, (C) is a much better choice.

I hope that helps!
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 02 Jun 2021, 20:42
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sayantanc2k
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@Experts, Please help with this: Why option D is wrong and C correct?

The correct comparisons are as follows:

Structure 1:
Comparing "circulation" with "circulation" - The circulation in period X is more than the circulation in period Y. OR The circulation in period X is more than that in period Y.

Structure 2:
Comparing 2 periods - The circulation is more in period X than in period Y. In this case the use of "that" to replace "circulation" would be incorrect.

The subject sentence has the structure 2.
Show more

Hi VeritasKarishma, I have a question on examples quoted by sayantanc2k above.

In his examples is the need to repeat "circulation" driven by the placement of verb, and if yes then is it a general rule?

For e.g. in Structure 1 "The circulation" is before the verb "is" and we are repeating the word after than
In structure 2 "The circulation" is after the verb "is" and we are not repeating the word than

Appreciate your time on this!
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 29 Jul 2021, 02:57
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Why does 'that' refer to lower circulation and not to circulation? 'lower' is just being used to compare circulation at one point in time to another. Please clarify.
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 29 Jul 2021, 06:27
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LinaZ
I do not understand why option E is not correct, and making a comparison with the following question, why the option with the "those of" is correct in this new question?
2018 book question: 758
Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now than a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raised corn and soybean prices.
A. than a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raised
B. than those of a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South are hurting crops and therefore raising CORRECT
C. than a year ago and are going down, despite floods in the Midwest and drought in the South, and are hurting crops and therefore raising
D. as those of a year ago and are going down, even though floods in the Midwest and drought in the South hurt crops and therefore raise
E. as they were a year ago and are going down, despite floods in the Midwest and drought in the South, and are hurting crops and therefore raising
Show more

I like your question. pls, read my posting which is previous your posting.

in some case, we dont need THE SAME GRAMMATICAL ROLE RULE",WHICH IS NOT ABSOLUTE. some time grammatical role changes, as in the case of choice B, the correct one, in your problem but the logic is good.

but, remember , if the grammatical role changes, the answer choice, though correct , is INFERIOR.
choice B, the OA, is inferior because

choice B can be interpreted as

prices are lower now than those (prices) of a year ago are low now. (we have to keep "now" because ellipsis rule)

this is absurd. yes, the OA is sometime still wrong. but it is best.
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 24 Aug 2021, 23:55
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!

This looks like a pretty straightforward GMAT question that deals with comparisons! Let's start off by doing a quick scan over the question, and highlight any major differences in orange:

Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.

(A) a similar period
(B) a similar period’s
(C) in a similar period
(D) that in a similar period
(E) that of a similar period

After a quick glance at the question, a couple differences jump out:

1. a similar / in a similar / that in a similar / that of a similar (Idioms & Parallelism)
2. period / period's (Meaning)

Let's start with #1 on our list: idioms & parallelism. If we look at the entire sentence, we see that this is a comparison that uses the following idiom:

X lower than Y

To make sure we know what X and Y are in the sentence, let's look at the entire original sentence:

Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.

The idiom in this case is constructed a little different than the original, but the rules still apply:

had lower circulation X than Y

We can also determine that X is "in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996." So whichever option we choose must be parallel to our X. To make this easier to spot, let's add in some more of the original comparison:

(A) had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier. --> NOT PARALLEL (It doesn't repeat the word "in" at the beginning of both X and Y.)

(B) had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period’s a year earlier. --> NOT PARALLEL (It doesn't repeat the word "in" at the beginning of both X and Y. Also, making "period's" possessive, it changes the meaning. This is now comparing a period of time to some other thing that exists in the other period, which isn't parallel.)

(C) had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than in a similar period a year earlier. --> PARALLEL

(D) had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than that in a similar period a year earlier. --> NOT PARALLEL (The two items being compared aren't parallel: a period of time vs. "that" in a period of time. It's also not clear what the pronoun "that" is referring to.)

(E) had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than that of a similar period a year earlier. --> NOT PARALLEL (The two items being compared aren't parallel: a period of time vs. "that of" a period of time. It's also not clear what the pronoun "that" is referring to.)

There you have it - option C is the only one that uses parallelism when comparing two periods of time! If you can spot comparison questions quickly on the GMAT, you can start with parallelism to narrow down your options significantly - and quickly!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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Thanks for the explanation. But I am still confused in between C and D. In above sentence , circulation is being compared right ? If so then, in D, that is referring to the circulation and which seem to be correct one IMO. But in C, what is being compared is not clearly mentioned. Please let me know where I am doing wrong.
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 28 Oct 2021, 16:42
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palashnagari11
Why does 'that' refer to lower circulation and not to circulation? 'lower' is just being used to compare circulation at one point in time to another. Please clarify.
Show more
The "that" in (D) and (E) does in fact seem to refer to "circulation" (as opposed to "lower circulation"). So the structure of the comparison in (D) and (E) is essentially, "[The newspapers] had lower circulation than [X]."

But notice that this structure causes the reader to think that X will be something else that had circulation. For example:

    "The newspapers had lower circulation than the magazines."

Both the newspapers and the magazines had some amount of circulation, and the circulation of the newspapers was lower than the circulation of the magazines. That makes perfect sense.

But in (D) and (E), X is circulation (since "that" = "circulation"). Because of the structure of the comparison, it sounds as though the circulation of the newspapers was lower than the circulation of... the circulation??

The word "lower" isn't really the issue here -- the comparison is confusing because we are expecting to compare two actions (how much one thing had to how much another thing had).

For more on this point, check out this post.

I hope that helps!
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 01 Apr 2022, 10:51
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chetan2u
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.
A. a similar period
B. a similar period’s
C. in a similar period
D. that in a similar period
E. that of a similar period


The Official Guide for GMAT Review 2018

Practice Question
Sentence Correction
Question No.: 784


Hi

What are we comparing ...
Positioning of circulation as part of 'lower circulation' should get you close to the answer..

So we are comparing circulation in TWO periods..

1) A and B wrongly compare a period directly to the circulation...
2) C and D get the preposition in to make a prepositional phrase..

Now in D what does THAT stand for- lower circulation. Substitute for THAT and see if the sentence makes sense.

Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than lower circulation in a similar period a year earlier.

So what we do is - compare two periods as part of prepositional phrase...
" in the six months....." Is parallel to " in similar period ...."

Ans C
Show more

Hi,

Why can't 'that' just points to 'circulation'?

Here, sentence becomes
Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than circulation in a similar period a year earlier.

No?
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 03 Apr 2022, 02:46
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GMATNinja KarishmaB ExpertsGlobal5 DmitryFarber

I found a new construction in non-underlined part of this sentence. Is this construction(FROM X THROUGH Y) correct or is it an exception? Usually, I reject option if it does not follow FROM X TO/UNTIL Y.
Sentence : Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months “from October 1995 through March 1996” than in a similar period a year earlier.
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation Updated on: 03 Apr 2022, 04:15
Originally posted by ParamjitDasGMAT on 03 Apr 2022, 04:09.
Last edited by ParamjitDasGMAT on 03 Apr 2022, 04:15, edited 1 time in total.
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Roy867
chetan2u
AbdurRakib
Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.
A. a similar period
B. a similar period’s
C. in a similar period
D. that in a similar period
E. that of a similar period


The Official Guide for GMAT Review 2018

Practice Question
Sentence Correction
Question No.: 784


Hi

What are we comparing ...
Positioning of circulation as part of 'lower circulation' should get you close to the answer..

So we are comparing circulation in TWO periods..

1) A and B wrongly compare a period directly to the circulation...
2) C and D get the preposition in to make a prepositional phrase..

Now in D what does THAT stand for- lower circulation. Substitute for THAT and see if the sentence makes sense.

Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than lower circulation in a similar period a year earlier.

So what we do is - compare two periods as part of prepositional phrase...
" in the six months....." Is parallel to " in similar period ...."

Ans C

Hi,

Why can't 'that' just points to 'circulation'?

Here, sentence becomes
Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than circulation in a similar period a year earlier.

No?
Show more

Hi Roy867, I'll be happy to help.

Yes, you are correct that the 'that' can, and probably does, point to "circulation". However, because of the presence of the verb "had" and the structure of the non-underlined portion, this comparison isn't possible. Consider the following sentence:

John had a lower mark than THAT of Sam --- not possible

John had a lower mark than Sam --- correct

Another way to eliminate D is that if we select D, then there isn't really too much meaningful difference between (B), (D), and (E), except for style. And an SC answer won't be correct solely because it is of a better style than another option.
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 03 Apr 2022, 04:14
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waytowharton
GMATNinja KarishmaB ExpertsGlobal5 DmitryFarber

I found a new construction in non-underlined part of this sentence. Is this construction(FROM X THROUGH Y) correct or is it an exception? Usually, I reject option if it does not follow FROM X TO/UNTIL Y.
Sentence : Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months “from October 1995 through March 1996” than in a similar period a year earlier.
Show more

Hi waytowharton, I am happy to help.

This is definitely possible, and is a pretty popular construction when indicating date ranges or answer choice options -- sometimes, the "from" can also be dropped.

For example:

    The summer semester runs (from) January through June.
    Options A through C (assuming there are 5 options) are invalid.

Hope this helps.
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 03 Apr 2022, 05:28
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waytowharton
GMATNinja KarishmaB ExpertsGlobal5 DmitryFarber

I found a new construction in non-underlined part of this sentence. Is this construction(FROM X THROUGH Y) correct or is it an exception? Usually, I reject option if it does not follow FROM X TO/UNTIL Y.
Sentence : Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months “from October 1995 through March 1996” than in a similar period a year earlier.
Show more

Hello waytowharton,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, as ParamjitDasGMAT has written, "from A through B" is a perfectly acceptable construction, typically used to indicate ranges.

We hope this helps.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 04 Apr 2022, 01:36
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waytowharton
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I found a new construction in non-underlined part of this sentence. Is this construction(FROM X THROUGH Y) correct or is it an exception? Usually, I reject option if it does not follow FROM X TO/UNTIL Y.
Sentence : Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months “from October 1995 through March 1996” than in a similar period a year earlier.
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When talking about time periods, 'from A through B' or 'A through B' clarifies that B is included as well. From Oct through March means March is included.
When using 'from Oct to March', one may wonder whether it is 'from 1st Oct to 1st March' or 'from 1st Oct to 31st March' etc.

Usage of "through" clarifies that March is included. This usage is more popular in US. British English uses 'from .. to".
Anyway, since it is from the non underlined part of the sentence, the test maker would not have worried much about it. This will not be the sole decision point for you.
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 17 Oct 2022, 03:42
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Hi GMATNinja,

I wanted to understand why do you say that "that" in option D refers to circulation and not lower circulation. Also, in which type of sentences can "that" refer to lower circulation?

Thanks much for your all posts/blogs on Gmatclub.
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 17 Oct 2022, 04:07
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zensoul
Hi GMATNinja,

I wanted to understand why do you say that "that" in option D refers to circulation and not lower circulation. Also, in which type of sentences can "that" refer to lower circulation?

Thanks much for your all posts/blogs on Gmatclub.
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Hello zensoul,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "that" refers to "circulation" rather than "lower circulation" because the pronouns “that” and "those" are used to refer to a variation of the subject, not the exact same subject.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 27 Oct 2022, 15:40
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zensoul
Hi GMATNinja,

I wanted to understand why do you say that "that" in option D refers to circulation and not lower circulation. Also, in which type of sentences can "that" refer to lower circulation?

Thanks much for your all posts/blogs on Gmatclub.
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Thank you for the kind words!

This is less about a rule than about the logic of how comparisons work. If I write, "Tim's day care had a lower enrollment in 1996 than that in 1997," the phrase, "lower enrollment" implies that there's another enrollment that's higher, so it wouldn't make much sense to compare one "lower enrollment" to a second "lower enrollment." The problem is that it's not at all clear what "that" is doing.

Is it comparing the 1996 enrollment in Tim's day to the 1997 enrollment in Tim's day care? Is it comparing Tim's day care to another day care? Who knows? So while "that" might not be violating any grammar rule, it's not good.

When you're looking at (D) in this official problem, the question isn't really whether "that" refers to "lower circulation" or just "circulation." (If one circulation is lower, another must be higher.) The biggest question is whether there's a clear and logical way to interpret "that."

If "that" refers to "circulation," it kind of sounds as though the newspaper had a lower circulation in one period than a circulation had in another. That doesn't make any sense. So is "that" referring to a different newspaper?

At this point, because "that" is neither clear nor logical, you can eliminate the answer without agonizing over whether there's some rule that dictates whether "lower" is part of the noun phrase "that" refers to. Either way, it's incoherent.

I hope that helps!
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 04 Dec 2022, 04:19
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Hi egmat,
Request help on this question egmat
Here is my understanding/doubts -

Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.


(A) a similar period - We can read this as the preposition 'in' being elided, but i eliminate this because stylistically 'in' is mentioned in option C.

(B) a similar period’s - the period doesn't own the circulation so this one is out

(C) in a similar period

(D) that in a similar period - Not at all sure how this is not correct, since 'that' refers to circulation, so circulation in one period can be lower than a circulation in another period, but why is this wrong?

(E) that of a similar period - in this case, its stylistically better to use prep. 'in' right?


Thanks in advance!! :)
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Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation 24 May 2023, 04:59
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Please help me with this :dazed

In another OG question, the OA vindicates this:
‘Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now than those of a year ago’

And here, we have this sentence with similar structure:
'Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from...to... than in a similar period.'

I can't see any difference between the two (except that we may not take 'a year ago' as 'a period of time'?)
If the first sentence is correct, why don't we say '....than that in/of a similar period' here???

OG is driving me crazy :please:
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