Comparison Paradoxy

Hi EducationAisle,

Thank you for the follow up.

I'm used to resort to a formulaic technique when it comes to these sort of things. Is there anything wrong for me to think of the correct answer as:

Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than they were last year because refiners are paving about S5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year.

and then drop the words (in blue) to give the answer?

I don't see anything wrong with the above sentence. And if given both the above and the correct answer, surely the I'll choose the correct answer due to economy of words. My prompt is for comments in thinking of an answer in this way: use the unabridged version as a check on its correctness.

Hi donnylee, this is correct interpretation.


Am pretty sure we would never see both of these in the options. However, your initial question was whether mentioning the verb is mandatory, in case of a tense change after the comparison operator.

Hence, I cited the official example to illustrate that despite the tense change after the comparison operator, explicitly mentioning the verb (with correct tense) is not mandatory in all scenarios. These scenarios are detailed out in the comparison chapter of our book.

Hi All,

I came across the below OG questions and found differences in the OG explanation which I am unable to comprehend.

OQ1: 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.

OE1: There is an illogical comparison between prices at the producer level and a time period (a year ago)

OQ2: Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year.

OE2: There is a comparison between this year's and last year's heating-oil prices.

Aren't both the explanations contradicting? What am I missing here?

Experts mikemcgarry, egmat , GMATNinja, KarishmaB, sayantanc2k, daagh, chetan2u
Could you please help me?

In question 1, the comparison is between prices and a time period. This is incorrect.

Question 2 option (A) is elliptical.
The missing words could very well be
... prices are expected to be higher this year than last [year's prices].

Karthik, I do not think there is anything wrong in the first part. It follows almost the same structure as the second sentence.
Having said that there must be some other errors in sentence 1 that make it wrong. And it is widely believed that although you can never doubt the answer but the explanations are not the best always.

If you are talking of ellipsis it can be done to both..

OQ1: Prices at the producer level are only 1.3 percent higher now than - the prices at the producer level - 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.
So nothing wrong here too. The choice is wrong basically for other reasons

In my opinion, you're correct. We noticed this at MPrep a while ago and had a discussion about it - I don't think we ever came to a satisfying conclusion, except for 'sometimes the official explanations are misleading.'

In general, if you see something like this ('prices are 1.3 percent higher now than a year ago') in an official problem, look at the other issues first and eliminate whatever you can. If you end up with two answer choices that both seem otherwise correct, but one says 'a year ago' and the other says 'the prices from a year ago', go with the one that spells it out more clearly. But there will most likely be another, clearer issue to work with first.

Hi Karthik, as others have correctly pointed out, there is nothing wrong in either of these sentences from a comparisons perspective; however, the official explanations are sometimes less than ideal.

In OQ1, the real problem is: .....in the south are hurting crops and therefore raised..... Hurting is not parallel to raised.

An officially correct sentence:

The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970’s.

Again, this is a correct sentence from a comparison perspective.

It would be wrong to consider that its numbers is being incorrectly compared with when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970’s.

The way to read this is:

The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than (its numbers were) when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970’s.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses these concepts of comparison, their application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

I need some clarification for the usage of Higher Than in sentence correction questions.

In OG 2019, answer for 758 states this:
Correct: Prices are higher now than (those of a year ago) ...
Incorrect: Prices are higher now than (a year ago)
Reason: "The sentence as written makes an illogical comparison between prices at the producer level and a time period (a year ago); surely the intended comparison is between such prices now and those of a year ago" - Direct quote from OG

But in OG 2019, answer for 772 states this:
Correct: Prices are expected to be higher this year than (last) ...
Incorrect: Prices are expected to be higher this year than (last year's)
Reason: "the possessive year's is not parallel with the adverbial phrase this year" - Direct quote from OG

Focusing specifically on the usage of "higher than" and ignoring all the other errors in the options provided (eg. not parallel), when is it right to compare (prices vs last) and (prices vs that of last year)? I've copied the questions below for your easy reference.

ps: I dont need a breakdown on how you derive the answer - that is available on another existing thread in this forum. Also, i have the view that the objects of comparison should have higher priority than the sentence being parallel, so i would like to exclude parallelism from the discussion for now if possible.


[OG 2019] 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

(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


[OG 2019] 772. Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year.

(A) Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were

(B) Heating-oil prices are expected to rise higher this year over last because refiners pay about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did

(C) Expectations are for heating-oil prices to be higher this year than last year's because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did

(D) It is the expectation that heating-oil prices will be higher for this year over last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil now than what they were

(E) It is expected that heating-oil prices will rise higher this year than last year's because refiners pay about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did

Hi NunuBot, am pretty sure that Prices are higher now than a year ago is a correct statement. For that reason, we should consume official explanations with a pinch of salt:).

Thanks for the replies.

I am under the impression that:
... higher A than B ....

Would require both A and B to be comparable and parallel, with being comparable more important than being parallel.

So...
Correct: Market prices are expected to be higher (now) than (a year ago)
Correct: Market is expected to charge a higher (price now) than (those a year ago)

Since (now) and (a year ago) are comparable, and so is (prices now) and (those a year ago).

By the same token:
Incorrect: Market is expected to charge a higher (price now) than (a year ago)
Incorrect: Market is expected to charge a higher (price now) than (last year's)

Given the inconsistencies in the OG's answers on the usage of Higher Than across multiple questions, perhaps I should not rely on this phrase for the initial split.

Well, this is incorrect for another reason.

When a sentence uses an action verb (charge in this case) and there is a tense change between the two parts of comparison sentence, then it becomes mandatory to explicitly mention the verb with the correct tense. So, the correct sentence will be:

Market is expected to charge a higher price now than it did a year ago.

Or

Market is expected to charge a higher price now than it charged a year ago.


This can be eliminated because of parallelism; there is nothing parallel to last year's in the first half of the sentence.

I've my official exam in 3 days and I am still struggling with comparisons.

Can someone help me with how to figure out when is verb required vs not in following comparisons

1. Prices are five percent higher now than a year ago.

My understanding:
What is being compared? - Prices now vs Prices a year ago so it should be
Prices are five percent higher now those of a year ago.

2. Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last
What is being compared? - Prices this year vs Prices last year
Above is correct. I don't understand why following is wrong
Heating-Oil prices are expected to be higher this year and last's (or prices of last year)

I've found myself often struggling with more than, more [verb] than related questions.

Is there any article which I can use?

Thank you

H Rohit, both the following sentences are correct:

1. Prices are five percent higher now than a year ago.

2. Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last


This is not a great construct, more from a parallelism perspective. When we have possessive (such as last's in this case), one would expect a similar construct on the left hand side. For example:

Peter's salary is more than Michael's.

Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year.

In the aforementioned question, the comparison "higher this year than last" is considered grammatically correct. However, in the following question, a similar comparison is labeled as incorrect. Am I missed something?

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.

Thank you for asking this question. I think your question is related to Ellipsis, one of the most complicated topics for me. But, I will try to answer.

Firstly, let's consider the sentence: Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year.:

In this sentence ellipsis is used at 'than last'. It means, than last year's heating-oil prices.

Now, let's consider the second sentence: 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.:

In this sentence ellipsis should be used at 'than a year ago'. However, when we try to replace the omitted part of the sentence, we either get:
1. than a year ago's prices at the producer level, which is grammatically incorrect as ago's is not a word. We can only use a possessive noun in such situations, for eg: Last year's prices.

2. If we omit the verb: than prices at the producer level a year ago, which is also grammatically incorrect as there should have been a verb here. Correct form: than prices at the producer level were a year ago.

If we keep the verb: than prices at the producer level are a year ago, which is also grammatically incorrect as there should have been a past tense verb here. Correct form: than prices at the producer level were a year ago.

Hopefully, this helped you.

The first question is discussed in detail HERE.

The second question is discussed in detail HERE.

Hope it helps.

P.S. I also merged this discussion with the older one on the same topic.

Thanks! This definitely helps.