The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in

Let's start with a couple simpler examples:

"Winery A sold 60% more jalapeño wine than Winery B."

We're comparing how much Winery A sold to how much Winery B sold (note that the second "sold" is implied and thus does not need to be repeated). You're probably OK with this one, even though the second implied "sold" is omitted from the comparison.

(You're probably less OK with the idea of jalapeño wine. Yes, we know a guy who makes the stuff in Iowa. It's... um... interesting? )

Here, have another:

"Winery A sold 5,000 liters of jalapeño wine, 60% more than Winery B sold."

We're still comparing how much Winery A sold to how much Winery B sold, but in a slightly different way. And the implied words are a little different. Here, it's basically, "Winery A sold 5,000 liters of jalapeño wine, [which is] 60% more than [the amount of wine that] Winery B sold." But even without the words in brackets, it's clear that we are comparing the amount of wine sold by the two wineries.

Choice (C) is a lot like the second example above:

"The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than [the value in goods that] the United States exported and nearly twice as much as [the value in goods that] the Japanese [exported]."

Even without the words in brackets, it's clear that we are comparing the value in goods exported by the EEC, the US, and Japan.

In (E), "what the United States exported" isn't bad (basically the same as "[the amount] the United States exported"). The problem with (E) is that we are comparing WHAT the EEC and US exported to Japanese exports themselves. For consistency, we'd want to compare WHAT the EEC and US exported to WHAT the Japanese exported. That's exactly what we get in (C), making the comparison more symmetrical (even if a few implied words are omitted).

Keep in mind that this is a very old, retired question from a paper test, so I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it.

Hello,

I need help here.

The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports.

Here I see that the main clause is "The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988".

"sixty percent more ..." is modifying "$400 billion in goods"

So I see the sentence as follows:

The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports.


Now I see that "sixty percent more..." and "nearly twice as..." are in parallel.
The compared entities seem to be between:
1. "$400 billion in goods" and "the United States did" - <WRONG>
2. "$400 billion in goods" and "Japan's export" - <CORRECT>

Now if we look at the comparison, we can see that it should be:

"($400 billion in goods was) sixty percent more than what the United States exported"
and
"($400 billion in goods was) nearly twice as much as Japan's export"

Compiling the whole sentence it should be:
The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than what the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports.

Now "did", the helping verb, can be changed to complete verb.
The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than what the United States exported and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports.


That is why I understand choice D to be correct.

Could someone please explain where I went wrong?

Hello Anandanwar,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe that we can resolve your doubt.

The simplest way to see that Option D is incorrect is because of the lack of parallelism between "what the United States did (exported)" and "Japan's exports"; the former is a verb phrase, and the latter is a noun phrase; please remember, any elements liked by conjunction must be parallel. By comparison, Option C - the correct answer choice - uses the parallel constructions "the United States did" and "the Japanese did".

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

Hi experts,

I am still confused why D is incorrect. Isn't 'What the US did' a noun clause? If yes, then elements in D are parallel.

Thanks

Well, all clauses have nouns, but there is a problem with the parallelism in (D).

First, take another look at the parallelism in (C):


Notice that we're comparing three actions. How much the ECC exported; how much the US exported; and how much the Japanese did. ("Did" is just a stand-in for "exported" here.) Looks good and parallel to me.

Now contrast that with (D):

Now we get actions for the first two elements in the comparison: how much the ECC exported; how much the US did (or exported.) But that last element, "Japan's exports" is a noun phrase with no verb. And we can't assume the same verb applies, otherwise, we'd be talking about how much Japan's exports exported, which is clearly nonsensical.

So that's why (D)'s parallelism is faulty.

I hope that clears things up!

Hi experts,

I eliminated options C & E because these two options compares the exports of entities/countries (EEC & US) with citizens of a country i.e. Japanese. Can we realy compare exports of a country with the exports of citizens from a country.
Is this legit?
Please help me understand if I am wrong

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Hello aditya999,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

If you look closely, Option C does not compare "goods" to "the Japanese"; it compares the verb phrases "exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988" and "the Japanese did". Similarly, Option E compares "just under $400 billion in goods" with "the Japanese exports".

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

Hi Experts,

I selected option D as i thought the phrases "sixty percent more than what the United States did" and "nearly twice as much as Japan's exports" is modifying "$400 billion in goods".

Thus $400 billion in goods is sixty percent more than what the United States did and $400 billion in goods is nearly twice as much as Japan's exports.

Please advise what is wrong in my above understanding as i had missed the parallelism.

I received a DM requesting that I comment.

Generally, the GMAT will not use more than to state that one value is more than another.
Incorrect:
The rate in 1990 was more than the rate in 1980.
To compare two values, the GMAT will typically use an -er word such as greater or higher.
The rate was HIGHER in 1990 than in 1980.

On the GMAT, more than typically serves to compare two VERBS.
John ate more than Mary.
Implied comparison:
John ate more than Mary [ate].

Non-underlined portion in the SC above:
The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than...
Here, more than serves to compare the preceding verb -- exported -- to another verb, as follows:
The European Economic Community EXPORTED more than some other entity EXPORTED.
The result is the OA:
The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than the United States exported.
Implied comparison:
The European Economic Community exported sixty percent more [goods] than the United States exported [goods].

Other official examples:
Lake Baikal holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.
Here, more than serves to compare the preceding verb -- holds -- to another verb, as follows:
Lake Baikal HOLDS more than some other entity HOLDS.
Implied comparison:
Lake Bailkal holds more [fresh water] than all the North American Great Lakes combined [hold fresh water].

The gap will be $3.7 billion, a billion dollars more than officials had predicted.
Here, more than serves to compare the preceding verb will be to the subsequent verb had predicted.
Implied comparison:
The gap WILL BE a billion dollars more than officials HAD PREDICTED [that the gap would be].

If you haven't done so already, try reviewing these two posts from earlier in the thread:

1) https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-european ... l#p2862256
2) https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-european ... l#p2924034

Option elimination-

(A) the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports - with "and" we need a parallelism. "nearly twice as much as Japan's exports " is a phrase.
(B) the United States and nearly double what the Japanese exports were - broken parallelism. Also correct usage of "double" is as follows - The company plans to double the size of its workforce or The sales team aims to double the number of clients."
(C) the United States exported and nearly twice as much as the Japanese did - "did" refers to exported. Perfect parallelism.
(D) what the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports - "nearly twice as much as Japan's exports" phrase.
(E) what the United States exported and nearly double the Japanese exports - "nearly double the Japanese exports" phrase.