Officials at the United States Mint believe that the Sacagawea dollar

Hi vshr,

That's how I read it. Of course, "its weight of only 8.1 grams is far lighter than its weight of only 8.1 grams is for four quarters" doesn't make any sense, so that's one way to remove option D. As you pointed out, something like "its weight, only 8.1 grams, is less than that of" would be better.

AjiteshArun Thanks!
Another similar problem is that these comparisons can be illogical sometimes and sometimes work just fine. These look illogical but they are not. How do we know this?
Examples
Correct: less total fat than livestock (Incorrect: less total fat than that of livestock)
Correct: prices higher this year than last (incorrect: higher than last year's -was also part of a choice )

Hi vshr,

My response may not be very helpful, as this is not a simple issue, but it's better to think of some of these constructions as being ambiguous.

1. ... wild animals have less total fat than livestock... ← This is ambiguous, not illogical.

The word livestock can play two roles here, so (1) can be read as "wild animals have less total fat than livestock do", which is correct, or it can be read as "wild animals have less total fat than wild animals have livestock", which is incorrect.

1a. ... wild animals have less total fat than livestock have...

1b. ... wild animals have less total fat than wild animals have livestock...

(1b) is definitely wrong, but that's the point: it is (1b) that is definitely wrong, not (1).

Isn't "less" only referred to uncountable things?

Because grams is countable, shouldn't less be wrong on option C ?

Good question. There are two ways to think about this:

Version #1: typically, when we're talking about countable entities, we mean integer values. (If you ask someone to count to 10, you don't expect them to throw in decimals, right?)

Because grams can be measured in non-integer values, it's fair game to use "less" to compare them.

Version #2: grams are a measurement of weight, and it's really the weight we're comparing, rather than the grams themselves. If you have 4 pencils and I have 3, then I have fewer pencils than you do. (Pencils are countable in integer increments.)

But if your pencil weighs 1.2 ounces and mine weighs 1.4, then your pencil weighs less than mine. We're not comparing ounces, but rather the weights of the pencils. (And weight can be a depicted as a non-integer value.)

I hope that clears things up!

GMATNinja
I am very happy to learn something different from here, but I am a little confused about the highlighted parts.


If 'it' refers back to 'Sacagawea dollar coin' then the choice E should be like follows:
(E) Officials at the United States Mint believe that the Sacagawea dollar coin will be used as a substitute more for four quarters rather than for the dollar bill because the Sacagawea dollar coin'S weight, only 8.1 grams, is far less than the Sacagawea dollar coin is for four quarters, which weigh 5.67 grams each.
May I know why did you use Sacagawea dollar coin's weight instead of Sacagawea dollar coin for the pronoun 'it' (not its)
Thanks for the support in the club.

In Option C, (referring to part ...weighs ,far less) how does comparing weight to four quarters make any sense ?

We attempted to address your question in this post, along with follow-up posts here and here.

Check those out, and let us know if it's still unclear!

Hello egmat - I have a reservation with regards to the requirement to have the "for". Can the "for" act as the usage of "ellipsis" and thus not require to repeat? Please correct me where I am going wrong in my understanding. Thanks. Thus, I am not understanding how B is wrong. Thanks.

Hello IN2MBB2PE,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in some cases, repeated prepositions ("for" in this case) can be omitted in comparisons for the sake of conciseness, but here, doing so clearly produces ambiguity in the comparison.

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

John is better for the Blue Team than the Red Team.
John is better for the Blue Team than FOR the Red Team

The first sentence could awkwardly convey: John is better for the Blue Team (than the Red Team is for the Blue Team).

But why would another team play for this team?!

The second sentence more clearly conveys what's probably going on: John is better for the Blue Team (than John is for the Red Team).

Hope that helps.

I am surprised by how easy it is for me to solve this. My SC skills are very average. My current verbal best is 32 xD

GMATNinja
Thanks for the explanation.
Do the pronoun 'it' and 'its' refer the same noun in choice D and E? or, the 'it' does not refer any 'pronoun' but it is an 'introductory it'?

GMATNinja,
could you clarify the highlighted part a little bit, please?
if the ''it'' refers back to 'the coin' then the sentence should be "the coin's weight is lighter than the coin is for four quarters"
Am i missing anything here?

In the correct answer choice, C, I did not understand how "far less than" comparison is correct. How can we compare weight with four quarters? Shouldn't it be something like "far less than what 4 quarters weigh" or "far less than 4 quarters' weight?

Raghav9906

Honestly, I don't love this one. Occasionally, the GMAT forces us to choose between seeming errors and go with the least offensive one, and that can feel arbitrary and unfair. However, in this case, the other errors are pretty bad, and the issue you're bringing up doesn't create a confusing alternative meaning, so I'd still choose C over the others without any major misgivings. We still know which thing weighs more. As a comparison, imagine that I said "I ran 4 miles, far less than my brother." You know that my brother isn't 4 miles, so that modifier must be comparing how far I ran to how far he ran. We could add DID to the end for clarity, but since there isn't an ambiguity to clear up, the GMAT might omit it.

Officials at the United States Mint believe that the Sacagawea dollar coin will be used more as a substitute for four quarters rather than for the dollar bill because its weight, only 8.1 grams, is far less than four quarters, which weigh 5.67 grams each.

Option elimination -
A word of caution when we use idioms to eliminate. GMAT also knows we like idioms, and it's easy for them to deceive us based on that. So, while "more rather than" is wrong here, think twice before we jump the gun. Here is a question: why do I say so - https://gmatclub.com/forum/gone-are-the ... l#p3291266

Now, back to our question, the bottom line is looking for the meaning, and that's a much better option to eliminate.

(A) more as a substitute for four quarters rather than for the dollar bill because its weight, only 8.1 grams, is far less than - "its weight" less than "four quarters"? We can say its weight is less than the weight of four quarters. Moreover, "more rather than" is wrong here. Wrong.

(B) more as a substitute for four quarters than the dollar bill because it weighs only 8.1 grams, far lighter than - In Ellipses, it can mean two things: either it carries the verb or the preposition, creating two different meanings.
1. Sacagawea dollar coin will be used "more as a substitute for four quarters than the dollar bill WILL" or
2. Sacagawea dollar coin will be used "more as a substitute for four quarters than FOR the dollar bill."
It's ambiguous. We need the 2nd meaning (that compares the S coin usage more for the four quarters than for the dollar bill) and not the 1st meaning (the S coin will be used as a substitute for four quarters more than the dollar bill will be a substitute for four quarters). Moreover, we can say he weighs less than his cousin. We don't say he weighs lighter than his cousin. Wrong.

(C) as a substitute for four quarters more than for the dollar bill because it weighs only 8.1 grams, far less than - ok

(D) as a substitute for four quarters more than the dollar bill because its weight of only 8.1 grams is far lighter than it is for - "for" before the dollar bill is missing. And we need "less than" and not "lighter than."

(E) as a substitute more for four quarters rather than for the dollar bill because its weight, only 8.1 grams, is far less than it is for - "more rather than" is wrong.