According to a 1996 survey by the National Association of College and

Not sure if these examples would help people understand the structure:

1. More people walk than drive.
2. Twice as many people walk as drive.
3. More people own guns than own cars.
4. Twice as many people own guns as own cars.
5. More independent institutions of higher education charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year than charge over $16,000.
5. More than three times as many independent institutions of higher education charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year as charge over $16,000.

The way I see it is as below. Can experts from this forum confirm this, please?

Kindly correct if I am wrong anywhere. This is very important to help my understanding.

Comparisons using the form as...as typically fall in the below categories:

Comparing the numbers

1. Comparison of two groups doing the same action. (My intention is: Number of Americans who buy pizza= 2*(number of Indians who buy pizza)

Different ways:
Twice as many Americans as Indians buy pizza. (or)
Twice as many Americans buy pizza as Indians. (Here " Indians do" is not mentioned. "do" is in ellipsis.)
Twice as many Americans buy pizaa as Indians do.

2. Comparison of two groups doing different actions. (My intention is: Number of Americans who buy pizza=2*(Num of Indians who buy salad)

Different ways:
Twice as many Americans buy pizza as Indians buy salad. (or)
Twice as many Americans buy pizza as Indians who buy salad. <-- is this correct?

3. Comparison of same group doing different actions. (My intention is: Number of Americans who choclate=2*(Num of Americans who buy pizza)

Different ways:
Twice as many Americans buy chocolate as buy pizza. (Here "those" is in ellipsis) (question in this thread)
Twice as many Americans buy chocolate as those who buy pizza. <--- is this correct?
Twice as many Americans buy chocolate as those that buy pizza <--- is this correct?


Comparing Likelihoods

1. Comparison of likelihood of two groups to do the same action

Different ways:
Americans are twice as likely as Indians to buy pizza. (or)
Americans are twice as likely to buy pizza as Indians. (or) (Here "do" is in ellipsis) <--- is this correct?
Americans are twice as likely to buy pizza as Indians do.

2. Comparison of likelihood of the two groups doing different actions

Different ways:
Americans are twice as likely to buy pizza as Indians are to buy salad.

3. Comparison of likelihood of the same group to do different actions

Different ways:
Americans are twice as likely to buy chocolate as to buy pizza.
Americans are twice as likely to buy chocolate as pizza. <--- is this correct?

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that there are more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education that charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year as there are such institutions that charge over $16,000.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Comparisons + Tenses + Idioms

• Habitual actions are best conveyed through the simple present tense.
• The simple present continuous tense is used to refer to actions that are currently ongoing and continuous in nature.
• "as many...as" is a correct, idiomatic construction.
• A comparison must always be made between similar things.

A: This answer choice incorrectly compares the verb phrase "charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year" to the pronoun phrase "those that charge over $16,000"; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar things. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "as many...than"; please remember, "as many...as" is a correct, idiomatic construction.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple present continuous tense verb "are charging" to refer to a habitual action; please remember, habitual actions are best conveyed through the simple present tense, and the simple present continuous tense is only used to refer to actions that are currently ongoing and continuous in nature. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "as many...than"; please remember, "as many...as" is a correct, idiomatic construction.

C: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "to charge"; the use of the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb" - "to + charge" in this sentence) leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that there are more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education that charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year as there are such institutions that charge over $16,000. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb" - "to + charge" in this sentence) to refer to a habitual action; please remember, habitual actions are best conveyed through the simple present tense. Additionally, Option C incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "as many...than"; please remember, "as many...as" is a correct, idiomatic construction.

D: Correct. This answer choice correctly compares the verb phrases "charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year" and "charge over $16,000", conveying the intended meaning - that there are more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education that charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year as there are such institutions that charge over $16,000. Further, Option D correctly uses the simple present tense verb "charge" to refer to habitual action. Additionally, Option D correctly uses the idiomatic construction "as many...as"

E: This answer choice incorrectly compares the verb phrase "charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year" to the pronoun phrase "those charging over $16,000"; please remember, a comparison must always be made between similar things. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "charging" in this sentence) to refer to a habitual action; please remember, habitual actions are best conveyed through the simple present tense.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Simple Continuous Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

E cannot be the answer because the parallelism within the comparison is broken.

E states: "as many independent institutions ... charge ... under $8,000 ... as those charging over $16,000."
The parallel construction needs to have the same verb form, charge, and not insert the extra, non-parallel word, "those".

D states: "as many independent institutions ... charge ... under $8,000 ... as charge over $16,000."
This one has the correct verb form and doesn't include any non-parallel words.

KW

I am copying the my own previous post here in case you missed it. If you are differ with this post, I would be happy to discuss further on arriving at a meaningful explanation.

"A simpler construction might help understand the complex question better:
Three times as many students like football as like basketball.

The correct comparison marker is as.... as. The combination as... than is wrong (than must go with a comparative adjective, not with as)

Therefore A,B and C can be eliminated.

The compared elements are:

3X institutions charge low fees (< $8000) and X institutions charge high fees (>$16,000). Two verbs charge and charge are being compared.

In option E,the parallelism is lost because charge and charging are compared.

Therefore D is correct."[/quote]

In option E, one element is a verb (charge) and other a participle (charging).

It is acceptable to omit repeated parts of the second element of two elements in parallel. Before the omission the sentence (simplified for easy understanding) is as follows:

More than three times as many institutions charge low fees as institutions charge high fees.

The blue font and green font portions are parallel elements.


It is allowed to omit the repeated part (institutions) from the second element ( green font). After omission the sentence becomes:
More than three times as many institutions charge low fees as instituionscharge high fees.

This sentence has a LOT of fluff that gets in the way of locating the correct answer.

GIVEN: According to a 1996 survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year than those that charge over $16,000

IGNORE THE FLUFF: According to a 1996 survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, more than three times as many THINGS DO one thing ______________something else

For parallelism, the blank needs something like "as DO"

We get: Three times as many THINGS DO one thing as DO something else

Answer: D

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Yes, even a verb can be omitted, if it has already been used in the first element of the parallel structure and the meaning is not obscured or ambiguous. For example, following is an ambiguous sentence:

I like chocolates more than Deepika.

The above may have two meanings:
I like chocolates more than Deepika (likes chocolates).
I like chocolates more than (I like) Deepika.

In such cases omission is not acceptable.

can anyone please explain what the correct answer is? Still confused between D and E.

Hi Noyonika ,

Correct answer is option D.

According to a 1996 survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year as charge over $16,000.

Notice that we are comparing one set of institutions that charge under $8000 and another set that charges over $16000.

So, we should say as many institutions charge over $8000 as institutions charge over $16000.

Did you notice the comparison of institutions based on the fees they charge?

Do you think "one set of institutions that charge under $8000 and another set charging over $16000." is || ?

The answer is NO. Hence, E is not correct because it is saying those charging on one side and those charge on another side.

A per the ||ism rule, if we are saying as X as Y ==> X and Y must be ||. Hence, E is incorrect.

Let me know if you any specific question.

The key to this question is the comparison idiom: "three times as many independent institutions [do a bunch of stuff] _______________ other institutions."

Obviously, I've stripped a lot of distracting crap out of the sentence, but what would you prefer to have in the blank: "as" or "than"?

See if that helps! And if you need more on comparisons, check out part I and part II of our YouTube series on the topic.

gmatexam439 abhimahna Your take on D vs E please

Hey vasuca10 ,

I am happy to help

You need to understand what are you comparing.

As many X as Y.

Here,X: Institutions charge under 8000
Y: Institutions charge above 16000.

You are comparing two clauses. So, is the case in D. We are using ellipsis here. as [institutions] charge

But in E, we have "those charging". "Verb + Ing" is no longer a verb. Hence, "those charging" is no longer a clause. hence, ||ism error.

Does that make sense?

There is a reason I am not convinced with OA D and this explanation. You say that:
more three times as many institution do X as do Y.

This would mean that:
"more than three times as many institutions do X as institutions do Y". this is not the correct meaning. Instead we should have something like:
"more than three times as many institutions do X as institutions that do Y". Now this is parallel. No matter how much you say that E is not parallel, it has "that" after institutions in a sense

If your goal is to improve your GMAT score, it really isn't helpful to argue with the correct answer on an official GMAT question. Whether we like it or not, the official answer is (D). Personally, I'm not a fan of some of the GMAT's decisions about what to test on sentence correction. But our opinions aren't useful for understanding how the test actually works.

Let's look more closely at the parallelism, and see if that helps you see what the GMAT is thinking here:

This about as parallel as it gets: "... more than three times as many institutions do X as institutions do Y." The two "halves" of the comparison are both clauses, with a subject and a verb. And I don't see how that's a problem meaning-wise, either: we're trying to compare the number of institutions that do each of the two tasks. It might not sound awesome, but it's grammatically and logically fine.


Look more carefully at the structure here: "more than three times as many institutions do X as institutions that do Y" The first part of the comparison, "institutions do X" is a clause again, with a subject and a verb. The second part is a noun with a modifier -- so not a clause at all, and not parallel to the first part of the comparison.

The same is true of the original version of (E): "... three times as many institutions charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year as those charging over $16,000." The first part of the comparison is a clause, with a subject and a verb. The second part is just a noun ("those" = "institutions") with a modifier ("charging"). Structurally, that simply isn't parallel.

I hope this helps!

Hi Gaurav, it would still be D for concision.

Could you please elaborate more, as i can see the experts were saying that there is only ||ism error in this sentence but if we correct the ||ism in this sentence then why the Option E is wrong