One of the main ways that photographers rank the quality of an image..

Nearly everyone has gotten this correct and in less than a minute. I think this sentence punishes non-native speakers more than anyone. The reason is simply because when a native speaker reads this the answer choice (B) is what they know they are looking for. It’s do this with an idiom that follows a certain pattern. The higher the.... the stronger the... The better the... the weaker the...

But let’s see how we might be able to knock out some of these answer choices.

One of the main ways that photographers rank the quality of an image is in terms of pixel count; if they rank the pixel count higher, the better the quality of the image.

(A) if they rank the pixel count higher, the better

A little confession: This question is very similar to an Official Guide question. So, I might have known there is a problem with the meaning on this. And, indeed, the problem here is that there is a bit of ambiguity. If you read the last part literally one could read it as saying that BY VIRTUE OF SIMPLY RANKING IT BETTER that the quality of image becomes better. It’s like saying that a good IMDB rating will make a film better. Doesn’t work that way!

(B) the higher the pixel count ranking, the better

Yes, yes. It feels right and it is right. But lets move on!

(C) ranking of the pixel count higher, that much better

Grammatically what follows a ; should be able to stand alone as a sentence. This doesn’t. Out!

(D) when the pixel count ranking is higher, the better

The GMAT is a little too literal I feel when it comes to this, but the problem here is with the word WHEN. Here the ambiguity, from the GMAT’s perspective, is that the sentence could mean that ONLY when the pixel count ranking is higher that the quality of the image is better. I’d recommend you all keep an eye on WHEN in SC.

(E) the higher the pixel count ranking, that much better

The higher the... the better... is what some people might be looking for at this point. I think I eliminated this one initially, however, due to the ,THAT. Be wary whenever you see a COMMA followed by THAT in SC. The usage is very limited on the GMAT.

mikemcgarry GMATNinja CrackverbalGMAT

Can you please explain the construction of the sentence after ';' , as it lacks verbs. How it can be a Independent Clause?