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Re: Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses [#permalink]
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Re: Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses [#permalink]
Which is it? is it A or C?
My first impression is that it's A, because the intended meaning is that Apple focuses more on those things than its competitors do, not that Apple focuses more on those things than ON competitors. These are two different meanings and it's difficult to understand author's meaning.
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Re: Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses [#permalink]
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gmatjewel wrote:
Which is it? is it A or C?
My first impression is that it's A, because the intended meaning is that Apple focuses more on those things than its competitors do, not that Apple focuses more on those things than ON competitors. These are two different meanings and it's difficult to understand author's meaning.


Hi gmatjewel,

The Correct Answer is C. In the previous page of this thread, the detailed solution has it all.

The way the sentence has been written, it is really NOT clear whether Apple focuses more on design than on its competitors OR Apple focuses more on design than do its competitors. The way it "seems" to you that it is the latter, to someone else it may "seem" that the former is the intended meaning. This is the concept that GMAT tests through these sentences.

If your argument is that that in Choice A, "do" is understood, it won't work because we can use ellipses ONLY to the extent till it DOES NOT lead to any ambiguity in the comparison. The word "do" has to be present in this sentence to do away with any scope of ambiguity. This e-GMAT sentence actually do so. Hence, Choice C is correct because it CLEARLY and UNAMBIGUOUSLY states the intended comparison.

You can review OGV2# 103. The same concept is tested there.

Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
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Re: Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses [#permalink]
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I think that this question is extremely bad and ill-conceived.

Its impossible to determine from A) whether Apple focuses more on simplistic design than the competitors focus on simplistic design or whether Apple focuses more on simplistic design than on the competitors.

Thats why stick with official questions :)
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Re: Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses [#permalink]
Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses more on simplistic and functional design than its competitors.

Here meaning of there underline portion is that Apple focuses more on X and Y than its competitors focuses on X and Y. Whereas, its actual meaning is Apple's focus on X and Y , rather than on what its competitors are doing

so correct answer is : C -more on simplistic and functional design than on
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Re: Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses [#permalink]
isn't the 'do' verb assumed in A]? It is said all the time in such comparison questions

Thus the comparison is b/w how the apple and its competitors focuses?
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Re: Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses [#permalink]
egmat wrote:
Sachin9 wrote:
Hi Payal,
Can't 'do' be missing because of usage of ellipsis as mentioned in my post below:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/apple-the-co ... l#p1177558


Great question Sachin. The concept behind your doubt is one of the main things being tested in this question. If I were to generalize your question, what you are asking is "when can we omit the helping verb and when can we not". We have explained this in detail in the article below: Please review it thoroughly and then apply the learning on the sentence in this question.
https://e-gmat.com/blogs/?p=194

We omit words (ellipses) only till the point the sentence communicates clear meaning. There should not be any ambiguity in the meaning communicated by the sentence.
Let's take the sentence again: this time simplified version of the sentence:

Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than its competitors.
As discussed in the official solution, there are two possible interpretations of this sentence. Now what I will do is progressively start to omit words and see what I get when I omit too much.

A: Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than its competitors do.
Expanded1 A: Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than its competitors focus.
Expanded2 A: Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than its competitors do. {replacing focus with do}
Expanded3 A: Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than its competitors do. {Omitting do}

B: Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than on its competitors.
Expanded B: Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than Apple focuses on its competitors.
Expanded2 B: Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than Apple focuses on its competitors. {omitting SV}
Expanded3 B: Apple focuses more on simplistic and functional design than on its competitors. {omitting on}

Notice that Expanded3A is same as Expanded3B = simplified original choice A. In both cases when I omitted too much i.e. omitted "do" in case A and omitted "on" in case B, I got a sentence that is now ambiguous.

And hence the takeaway:

1. The sentence must be constructed in such a way that the comparison is absolutely clear. As we saw in this case due to omission of words, the comparison was no longer clear. So when we omit words we should always make sure that the comparison does not become unclear.

I hope this helps clarify the confusion. In addition to this question, apply this learning on the official question from OG Verbal Review 2 - #103.

Regards,

Payal


Hi egmat Payel

I would not agree 100% on it since how much to omit to clearly specify the meaning is something we all can argue based on various sentence construction in English language. I choose (A) in case of (C) because though (C) is parallel and grammatically correct, the intended meaning through the construction seems not logical. Why will a company focus on design and it competitors? Maybe if it was written -

Quote:
Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses more on simplistic and functional design than on its competitors design.


So in this case also we can argue that the sentence could have ended with "design" and that can make the intended meaning clearer.

I hope I was able to convey my doubt.

Thanks!
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Re: Apple, the company that has the highest revenue per employee, focusses [#permalink]
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