St. John's, Newfoundland, lies on the same latitude as Paris, France,

Went for C. Seems to be the only one that is parallel.

believe it's A - the only answer that preserved the "less 'than'" phrase.

The basic problem in C is that it does not make clear what is less likely .... than; in other words by failing to make a genuine comparison by using the comparative term ‘less likely than’, the sentence simply makes a statement of two facts, conjugating them with the conjunction ‘and’. C misses the spirit of comparison and hence not of logical predication as GMAT would like to so fondly call it

Although the right idiom would be "less likely to X than Y" could it not be acceptable to say "it is less likely to X and more likely to Y"? Or is that incorrect?

Hey MisterEko,

I think you're right...while you so often see the GMAT expression more...than or less...than, it's definitely not wrong to say something like:

I'd like to include more vegetables and less fat in my diet.

So words like "more" and "less" don't REQUIRE a "than" in there...it's just a very common and very efficient way to set up a comparison so you'll often see that structure used in comparison-based correct answers. Your hypothetical doesn't appear to be "wrong" by any means.


Because there are so many correct ways to phrase a sentence, I'd highly recommend looking for known errors in these. C, a popular choice on this one, is simply not parallel in its list: More likely to be bracing, shoveling, or to be seeking. The first "to be" covers all three present-tense verbs; to have "to be" on two of them but not on the middle one breaks parallel list structure and is therefore wrong.

I'd look for those known-to-be-incorrect errors and save "unique" or "awkward" phrasing to the end because we simply can't become expert on all possible correct phrases, but we can get pretty efficient at rooting out the known mistakes.

Even I went for A , going by the idiom "less X than Y" , but in A , X and Y are not parallel. Can someone please explain....??

+1 A

Why do you think that A is not parallel?

I am also for A. ANd I think there really is paralelism in the answer.

Less liketo to be -ing than to be -ing, ing, or ing.

I'd say A too.. Curious about the OA now..

good question... I fell for C...
D is incorrect because of "their sitting...."
E is eliminated because of improper parallel structure...
B is incorrect again for dropping the comparative term "than"...
C again breaks the parallel structure by dropping "than"..
Left with A......

Looks like A should be it. ing is parallel for all the three.

Clearly A. 'less x than y' idiom and all things are parallel.

St. John’s, Newfoundland, lies on the same latitude as Paris, France, but in spring St. John’s residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes than to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or seeking shelter from a raging northeast storm.
(A) residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes than to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or seeking
(B) residents are less likely to sit at outdoor cafes, and more to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or be seeking
(C) residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes, and more likely to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or to be seeking
(D) residents, instead of their sitting at outdoor cafes, they are more likely to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or seek
(E) residents, instead of sitting at outdoor cafes, are more likely to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or to be seeking

St. John’s, Newfoundland, lies on the same latitude as Paris, France, but in spring St. John’s residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes than to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or seeking shelter from a raging northeast storm.

(A) residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes than to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or seeking
(B) residents are less likely to sit at outdoor cafes, and more to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or be seeking
(C) residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes, and more likely to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or to be seeking
(D) residents, instead of their sitting at outdoor cafes, they are more likely to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or seek
(E) residents, instead of sitting at outdoor cafes, are more likely to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or to be seeking

I like this sentence. When that happens, you leave A as it is and look for errors in each of its alternatives. Let's try it:

B - Eliminate from "be seeking"
C - Eliminate from "to be seeking"
D - Eliminate from "or seek"
E - Eliminate from break in parallelism between "instead of sitting" and "brace", "shove", and "be seeking"

A it is.

See the Signal Words -
1. , , or
eliminate c b e
2. less---than or more.
eliminate d => instead of their wrong pronoun.

hence A

St. John’s, Newfoundland, lies on the same latitude as Paris, France, but in spring St. John’s residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes than to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or seeking shelter from a raging northeast storm.

(A) residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes than to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or seeking

'to be sitting...' is parallel to 'to be bracing...', which, in turn, is parallel to 'shoveling snow' and 'seeking'

(B) residents are less likely to sit at outdoor cafes, and more to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or be seeking

'be seeking' is not parellel with the rest of the sentence.

(C) residents are less likely to be sitting at outdoor cafes, and more likely to be bracing themselves against arctic chills, shoveling snow, or to be seeking

'to be seeking' breaks up the parallelism of 'Verb-ing'

(D) residents, instead of their sitting at outdoor cafes, they are more likely to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or seek

'their sitting at...' is awkward.

(E) residents, instead of sitting at outdoor cafes, are more likely to brace themselves against arctic chills, shovel snow, or to be seeking

'to be seeking' is not parallel with 'brace' and 'shovel.'

All of the answer choices sounded bad to me, but it seems as if that A was the best answer. I was torn between A and D, but chose D, because even though it had "their sitting" it was more parallel than A, because A made the sentence seem as if the residents would be bracing themselves against "shoveling snow", which does not make any sense.