VIVA1060 wrote:
Hi Experts
generis,
AndrewN,
Per my reading, there is no ambiguity in choice D as the time to disintegrate is being compared clearly - what the researchers expected vs. what the expectation turned out to be. Are there any other eliminations for Option D?
Regards,
VIVA
Hello, VIVA. Although I would agree in that I might say such a sentence as (D) and not think twice about adding the extra words for clarity, we are leaning perhaps too heavily on ellipsis to build the bridge in meaning. That is, the comparison places an emphasis on an action,
taking more time, and that part could be left out as an understood element if we saw a word such as
expected after the comparison marker,
than. But this ellipsis leaves out not just the verb, but the doer of the action, and on the GMAT™, such an overload is not preferable—the meaning may be unclear. To illustrate, if we ignore the adverb and look at the comparison at a barebones level, we get,
plastics are taking more time than it seemed [they would take]
If we reintroduce what was happening to the end of the sentence, we would get,
plastics are taking more time than it seemed [they would take]
to deteriorateBut now, look what happens if we remove the "understood" part in brackets:
plastics are taking more time than it seemed to deteriorateThis is the nonsensical meaning that others have pointed out in earlier posts. Seemed to what, exactly? The correct answer clarifies the matter by adding the necessary information.
plastics are taking more time than it seemed they would [take]
to deteriorateAn elided verb in such a comparison is fine. The inclusion of
it after the comparison simply requires too much to supply on the part of the reader in the more concise option. Again, the truncated version is fine for conversation, but not on the GMAT™.
I hope that helps with your query. Thank you for thinking to ask.
- Andrew
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