Parenting an adolescent child can be challenging; even experts acknowl

Question

Parenting an adolescent child can be challenging; even experts acknowledge  it is easy for parents to give up rather than establishing a new relationship with their teenager .

A. it is easy for parents to give up rather than establishing a new relationship with their teenager
B. it is easier for parents to give up than to establish a new relationship with their teenager
C. that it is easy for parents to give up rather than establish a new relationship with their teenager
D. that it is easier for parents to give up rather than establish a new relationship with their teenager
E. that parents’ giving up is easier than establishing a new relationship with their teenager

Source - Expert global

AndrewN · Accepted Answer

Hello, everyone. In an effort to assist the community, since I have seen a few Expert Reply requests come through on this question lately, I will offer my thoughts below.

Split #1— it is  versus  that it is  versus  that parents' giving up is   : Concerning the first two, yes, the GMAT™ often incorporates the extra clause marker in  that , and I have seen others insist that it has to do with the higher, more formal diction of the test, but the word does not always show up where you would expect it to be. Consider the following examples, all correct answers, from different editions of the Official Guide:

1)  Astronomers at the Palomar Observatory have discovered a distant supernova explosion, one  they believe to be of  a type previously unknown to science.  ("one they believe"; OG 9,  question link )

2)  For many people, household labor remains demanding  even if they can afford household appliances their grandparents would have found miraculous .  ("appliances their grandparents"; OG 1988,  question link )

3)   On first encountering leaf-cutting ants in South America, some Europeans thought the insects were  carrying bits of greenery to shade themselves from the tropical sun—hence the sobriquet “parasol ants.”  ("thought the insects"; OG 2021,  question link )

In short, I would NOT use the absence of  that  to eliminate anything. Answer choice (E) ditches the placeholder  it  in favor of naming something, but it is not exactly easy to follow the possessive  parents' giving up . Straightened out, and in the context of the sentence, we can interpret the possessive as  that giving up by parents is easier . There should be a better way to express the notion that parents are being put to a test, forced to decide between one tough option and another. I might not write off the answer choice right away, but I would carry a significant doubt about it going forward.

Split #2— easy  versus  easier   : Now, we launch into comparative elements, and doing so involves taking a look at the larger construct.

(A)  easy... to give up rather than establishing —In an idiomatic  X rather than Y  construct, we would ideally have parallel elements, in this case either  to give up rather than establish , parallel infinitives, or  giving up rather than establishing , parallel gerunds. Mixing and matching is not what we want, so (A) can bow out. On these same grounds, (C) can stay. Note the parallel infinitives.

(B)  easier... to give up than to establish —This is a proper infinitive-to-infinitive comparison. Note that the comparative  easier  fits a  ___-er than  mold—e.g.,  taller than ,  smarter than —so the missing  rather  is not a problem. Leave this answer choice alone for now.

(D)  easier... to give up rather than establish —What I just said above is now brought to bear. The comparative  easier  allows  than  to follow without an extra comparative in  rather . Redundancy is a no no. Get rid of this option, which otherwise looks okay, comparing two infinitives.

(E)  giving up is easier than establishing —Again, there is no problem with the comparison.

In the end, we should get rid of answer choices (A) and (D) on this consideration.

Since there are no further splits, I would drop (E) for the doubt expressed earlier and look at (B) and (C) again, side by side, in the context of the sentence:

Both comparisons are correct, and the decision point seems to fall solely on the presence or absence of  that . For reasons noted earlier, I do not believe a test-taker would be placed in such a position. You might say that (C) is a safer bet and point to numerous cases in which  that  appears after a word such as  acknowledge , but if counterexamples exist (and there are others from GMAT Prep that I did not wish to spoil), I would call the question a wash.

If nothing else, perhaps you can appreciate why I always recommend sticking to official questions for Verbal preparation. There are some worthwhile discussion points in the above question—comparisons, idioms, parallel structure, redundancy—but there should be one clear and defensible answer, not two.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

daagh · Answer

IMO, a small crosscurrent is seen in the usage of the phrase 'rather than' in the passage. It is a fact that we use 'rather than' in GMAT when we prefer X to Y.
When a preference cannot be established, it will be difficult to justify the use of 'rather than.'

In the given case, it is clear that the parents give up not because they prefer it but because they don't know how to establish a new relationship. 
Probably a sentence like--- that it is easy for parents to give up but not establish a new relationship with their teenager ---- would be more relevant in the context.

Bunuel · Answer

Experts' Global Video Explanation:

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hiranmay · Answer

Parenting an adolescent child can be challenging; even experts acknowledge  it is easy for parents to give up rather than establishing a new relationship with their teenager .

A. it is easy for parents to give up rather than establishing a new relationship with their teenager --> It is required to use  that  after  acknowledge 
B. it is easier for parents to give up than to establish a new relationship with their teenager --> same as  A 
C. that it is easy for parents to give up rather than establish a new relationship with their teenager -->  correct 
D. that it is easier for parents to give up  rather than  establish a new relationship with their teenager 
E. that parents’ giving up is easier than establishing a new relationship with  their  teenager --> pronoun"their" can't refer to possessive noun "parents"

shekhu · Answer

I marked D too but now I understand why it is wrong

Easier is already doing the comparison, that's why it is redundant with rather than. D can be eliminated.

Hero8888 · Answer

Dear  daagh

Is usage of comparative in option D "easier" unjustified? Should we avoid it in constructions with "rather than", but use -er only in constructions with "than"?

Thanks

daagh · Answer

Hero8888
Generally, if there is no comparison involved, the use of the comparative makes no point. If however a comparison is involved, 'easier than' may be sufficient. We don't use 'rather than' in all comparative degree of comparisons, do we?

NhatMai · Answer

A. it is easy for parents  to give up  rather than  establishing  a new relationship with their teenager >> not parallel + missing "that"
B. it is easier for parents to give up than to establish a new relationship with their teenager >> missing "that"
C. that it is easy for parents to give up rather than establish a new relationship with their teenager >> correct
D. that it is  easier  for parents to give up  rather than  establish a new relationship with their teenager >> easier "than", not easier "rather than"
E. that parents’ giving up is easier than establishing a new relationship with  their  teenager >> "their" can't refer to possessive noun "parents"

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  AndrewN  - between B and C : you mention - the comparisons are both correct in the yellow highlight

I thought the comparisons WERE NOT SIMILAR (because of the difference in the usage  easy  vs  easier , specifically)

Would like to illustrate through a simpler analogy why i  think   these comparisons are different.

jabhatta2 · Answer

^^^

In the case of B - we are comparing  ease  on a gradient scale (out of 10) - Ease of establishing a relationship is level 4 whereas Ease of teaching Sally is level 8.

In the case of C - we not comparing 'ease' on a gradient scale. .. in sentence C - we are saying - Andrew finds it easy to teach Sally whereas Andrew may have found it ' hard ' or "not so easy" (both possibilities are plausible) to establish a relationship with Sally .

I think the intended meaning by the author is to compare 'relative ease' (on a gradient scale) -- thus I eliminated C

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  jabhatta2 . I think you would benefit from simplifying your approach to questions. From the times we have crossed paths in both the SC and CR forums, I can say that I have often written the same thing—be careful not to let a specific or narrow interpretation blind you to other possibilities. In this case, your statement at the end— I think the intended meaning by the author is... —cannot be backed up by any evidence from the part of the sentence that is not underlined. When Experts talk about intended meaning, we point to the non-underlined portion as often as there is one, because  anything that is underlined can be negotiated . Hence, we cannot point to the contents of the underlined portion and state, definitively, that  this  is what the author means to convey. That said, I agree that the author does seem to want to highlight a challenge, namely the challenge of  parenting an adolescent child . Look at the non-underlined portion:

The keywords  challenging ,  even , and  acknowledge  allow us, the readers, to anticipate further commentary on this challenge. But once a contrast enters the picture, we can only judge that contrast on its own merits, not on what the earlier part of the sentence sets up. In answer choice (C), I would probably use  would  to express the same idea, but it is not incorrect to use  is . Consider:

Original—   that it is easy for parents to give up rather than establish a new relationship with their teenager 
Tense shift—   that it  would be  easy for parents to give up rather than establish a new relationship with their teenager

Either way, the contrast indicates that one thing is  easy  to do while an alternative is not. This does  not  mean that the alternative is necessarily hard or challenging, as in your sample sentence on teaching Sally and Ron, just that it is not easy. However, in  this  sentence, the one at the top of the thread, we have the word  challenging  to fall back on in the non-underlined portion, so the alternative,    establish a new relationship with their teenager , can be seen as a challenge.

As I indicated in my earlier post, there is nothing wrong with the contrast set up in answer choice (B) either:

Now, the contrast is measuring the relative ease of performing one action over another, and, from the earlier part of the sentence, we can reasonably interpret the second action as  challenging . Sure, I would probably phrase the sentence this way if I were thinking to draw such a contrast, but my point earlier was that my preference does not make the other option wrong.

Your goal is not to judge what the author intends to say, but to listen, more or less, to what cannot be debated and then select an answer choice that logically and clearly and concisely links up with the other available information in the sentence.

- Andrew

lostminer · Answer

Dear  ExpertsGlobal  in the answer explanation you said E is rejected because it is in not in active usage. But can you provide a strong and valid reason to eliminate E here ? Also "their" in C may refer to experts or child or parents, isn't it ambiguous

Dear  GMATNinja   MartyTargetTestPrep   AndrewN   GMATNinja   Vinit800HBS  can you please shed some light on possesive noun+ verbing usage being active or passive construction ?

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  lostminer . I wrote  a lengthy response  on this question just last month, when it was posted in a different thread. I will see if I can get a moderator to merge the threads.

Thank you for thinking to ask me about the question.

- Andrew

Bunuel · Answer

_________________________
Merged the topics. Thank you!

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  lostminer ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, as  AndrewN  has written, the use of a possessive noun construction ("parents’ giving up") rather than a placeholder pronoun ("it") in Option E makes it needlessly indirect and difficult to comprehend, so Option C is superior.

Further, since all the answer choices use "their", this usage is moot as far as the elimination of incorrect answer choices is concerned.

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

lostminer · Answer

I agree to the first point but the second point as you said, THEIR is present in all the options so it is not an issue to be considered. But remember that THEIR is E is correctly referring to possessive parents’ while in other options it may refer to experts child or parents.

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Posted from my mobile device

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  lostminer ,

We hope this finds you well.

To clarify, Option E, like the other four answer choices, contains two nouns that "their" could conceivably refer to - "parents'" and "experts" - so, the ambiguity is present in Option E as well.

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

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