|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
12 Jan 2021, 21:58
Kudos
Bookmarks
D
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
65%
(hard)
Question Stats:
52% (01:37) correct
48%
(01:43)
wrong
based on 554
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
One of five computers are now purchased by people aged fifty years or more, compared with just one of nine purchased in 2001.
A) of five computers are now purchased by people aged fifty years or more, compared with just one of nine purchased
B) of five computers is now purchased by a person whose age is fifty or older, compared to just one of nine computers that were purchased
C) computer in five are now purchased by people aged fifty or older, compared to just one in nine
D) computer in five is now purchased by a person aged fifty or older, compared with just one in nine
E) in five computers is now purchased by people aged fifty years or more, compared with just one of nine purchased
12 Jan 2021, 22:01
Kudos
Bookmarks
OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
One of/in five Xs is singular and should be coupled with the verb is [purchased].
→ Correct: One in five Americans is Latino (LatinX).
→ Correct: One of five candidates at the academy fails before the end of the first semester.
Options A and C incorrectly use are.
ELIMINATE A and C
• • Split #2: Idiom/Construction
To talk about age, we say aged 50 years or older, not aged 50 years or more
→ You may hear "or more" in colloquial or informal speech, but "or older" is idiomatic.
Option E incorrectly uses "or more."
Option E also contains a construction issue. It's small and bothersome but not enough on its own to eliminate E.
The second "purchased" is not necessary and in fact sets up a strange construction in which it almost sounds as though the noun computers, which is modified by "one in five," were being compared with purchased.
Now, we can omit nouns. Such omission is called ellipsis and is correctly used in option D.
But if we omit the noun the second time, which in its first mention is coupled via the linking verb is with the subject complement purchased, we do not need to include the adjective purchased again.
ELIMINATE OPTION E
• • Split #3: Style/Rhetorical construction
Option B is not well-written, a fact that is easier to see when we compare (B) to (D).
Concision tops the list of reasons that option B is inferior to option D.
→ a person whose age is (B) is a needlessly long way to say a person aged
→ we don't need to repeat the information computers that were purchased: we know what "one in nine" refers to.
ELIMINATE B
The best answer is D.
NOTES
GMAC does not test the traditional difference between compare to and compare with.
Spend ZERO time on the issue.
I answered zhanbo 's question about the matter in this post, here.
COMMENTS
beeblebrox (great username!), welcome to SC Butler.
ravigupta2912 , this sentence made me laugh:
D is the answer because nothing about D makes me wary.
For all of you, there will indeed be moments when you have analyzed the grammar and style as much as you can, and one answer does not bother you.
Pick that one.
You may not be able to articulate why it does not bother you, but after decent mastery of grammar rules and consistent reading of prose written in English, you will develop a sense for which option is better or worse than the others. (Please, do not look for one correct answer. Eliminate the four worst answers, an approach that the wryly funny sentence captures perfectly.)
These answers range from very good to excellent. Nice work!
Project SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC1)
Quote:
• Split #1: SUBJECT/VERB agreement
One of/in five Xs is singular and should be coupled with the verb is [purchased].
→ Correct: One in five Americans is Latino (LatinX).
→ Correct: One of five candidates at the academy fails before the end of the first semester.
Options A and C incorrectly use are.
ELIMINATE A and C
• • Split #2: Idiom/Construction
To talk about age, we say aged 50 years or older, not aged 50 years or more
→ You may hear "or more" in colloquial or informal speech, but "or older" is idiomatic.
Option E incorrectly uses "or more."
Option E also contains a construction issue. It's small and bothersome but not enough on its own to eliminate E.
The second "purchased" is not necessary and in fact sets up a strange construction in which it almost sounds as though the noun computers, which is modified by "one in five," were being compared with purchased.
Now, we can omit nouns. Such omission is called ellipsis and is correctly used in option D.
But if we omit the noun the second time, which in its first mention is coupled via the linking verb is with the subject complement purchased, we do not need to include the adjective purchased again.
ELIMINATE OPTION E
• • Split #3: Style/Rhetorical construction
Option B is not well-written, a fact that is easier to see when we compare (B) to (D).
Concision tops the list of reasons that option B is inferior to option D.
→ a person whose age is (B) is a needlessly long way to say a person aged
→ we don't need to repeat the information computers that were purchased: we know what "one in nine" refers to.
ELIMINATE B
The best answer is D.
NOTES
GMAC does not test the traditional difference between compare to and compare with.
Spend ZERO time on the issue.
I answered zhanbo 's question about the matter in this post, here.
COMMENTS
beeblebrox (great username!), welcome to SC Butler.
ravigupta2912 , this sentence made me laugh:
D is the answer because nothing about D makes me wary.
For all of you, there will indeed be moments when you have analyzed the grammar and style as much as you can, and one answer does not bother you.
Pick that one.
You may not be able to articulate why it does not bother you, but after decent mastery of grammar rules and consistent reading of prose written in English, you will develop a sense for which option is better or worse than the others. (Please, do not look for one correct answer. Eliminate the four worst answers, an approach that the wryly funny sentence captures perfectly.)
These answers range from very good to excellent. Nice work!
12 Jan 2021, 22:47
Kudos
Bookmarks
My answer is (D). It took me 1:27.
(A) One of five is singular and thus cannot work with "are"
(B) In order to achieve parallelism in comparison, "just one of nine computers" is sufficient. The added "that were purchased" is extraneous. In addition, I think "that" refers to one, which means "were purchased" is wrong.
(C) One of five is singular and thus cannot work with "are"
In (D) and (E), one computer is purchased by "a person" (D) or "people"(E)? It is nice to continue to use singular noun. Also, "aged fifty or older" is more idiomatic than "aged fifty years or more". That is why I chose (D).
Note: The phrase "compared with" is used to compare similar things, while the phrase "compared to" is used to compare dissimilar things. Does such distinction play a role in this question?
(A) One of five is singular and thus cannot work with "are"
(B) In order to achieve parallelism in comparison, "just one of nine computers" is sufficient. The added "that were purchased" is extraneous. In addition, I think "that" refers to one, which means "were purchased" is wrong.
(C) One of five is singular and thus cannot work with "are"
In (D) and (E), one computer is purchased by "a person" (D) or "people"(E)? It is nice to continue to use singular noun. Also, "aged fifty or older" is more idiomatic than "aged fifty years or more". That is why I chose (D).
Note: The phrase "compared with" is used to compare similar things, while the phrase "compared to" is used to compare dissimilar things. Does such distinction play a role in this question?
