The exhibition of ancient Egyptian funerary art — imposing statues, in

E is the correct choice

Its not correct to use "equivalent to" when you deal with numbers.

agree with E.

exhibition..drew hundreds of people , as many as <people> visted last year's impressionist show.

C is wrong

hundreds of people <>(can' be equal to) people who visted.

Please under line the problem and also make sure that answer choices are typed correctly.


exhibition drew..100's<Number> of people ..

B, C --> equating "Number of people" with "people" --> This is illogical
D -> visitation to --> awkward
between A and E

E sounds clear and concise

(A) equivalent to the number of visitors to hundreds plural vs the number singular so wrong
(B) the equivalent of those that visited equivalent of those unidiomatic
(C) equal to those who visited hold
(D) as many as the visitation to awkward
(E) as many as visited hold

between C and E I chose as many as is more concise than choice C

so I chose E

Hi ,
Good Question. It is the question on comparison. Let me first simplify the question. We can strike of prepositional phrase 'of ancient Egyptian funerary art — imposing statues, intricately painted coffins, and numerous accoutrements'

The exhibition drew hundreds of people each day,equivalent to the number of visitors to last year’s Impressionist show.

A is wrongly comparing exhibition to the number of people visiting last year impressionist show
B and C are out for similar reason

Here we need to compare the number of people visiting(drawn by) the exhibition with the number of people visiting the last year impressionist show.

'as' should be the preposition that should be used to compare two actions and 'like' should be used to compare two nouns. D and E correctly uses 'as' but in D visitation is wrongly used instead of visited. E corrects the same.

Hope this helps. Thank You

I agree with the explanation for equivalent to because when we say X is equivalent to Y, it means they are not exactly same units but are still comparable.
With regards, to equal to I think the problem here is that it can take up several meanings.
e.g. John is equal to Mike in rank (Here we are not saying they are both the same but their ranks are equal)
e.g. Michael Johnson equaled Tom Meyers record in the 100m dash. (So, here he equaled his time)
So, equal to can mean different things and the context is important here.

The very first question which pops up when we use equal to is "in terms of what"? Here the answer should be numbers. But there is no reference to numbers. So, thats the reason we should rule it out.

With respect to D : I don't think there is a comparison error here because 8 million can be compared those who are enrolled in but when you say "THE ENROLLMENT OF" its awkward usage. And also enrollment of has a different meaning and changes it completely. Enrollement of here could mean that people studying in these universities and colleges are enrolling in something else but we need to talk about people enrolling in these universities and colleges.

Hope this clears up some doubts.

In the above quoted, green modifies the idea present in the blue.
Green says:"equivalent to the number of visitors to last year’s Impressionist show."
Blue says : "hundreds of people each day".
This is incorrect.
"Hundreds of people each day" is NOT EQUIVALENT to the NUMBER of visitors.

The correct logic is to compare the # of people/day in one show with the # of people/day in the other show.

In B, "hundreds of people each day" are being made EQUIVALENT TO THOSE present at the other show. It compares the RATE with the people. (Rate= hundreds of people each day). Also uses "that" to address people instead of "who".

In C, again the same issue. "Hundreds of people each day" is being compared to the people .

In D, compares "hundreds of people each day" to the "visitaion". Illogical

E is the one that is clear with the intended meaning, and is logical.

Hope that helps.

IMO, GMAT considers the use of the word equal or equivalent as one that cannot used just to compare a single factor or phenomenon. You may use them only to compare all - round personality, involving a gamut of features. That is the reason the first three choices are rejected as not using proper diction. Between D and E, of course, there may not be a problem to discard D for its wordiness and clumsiness. E is the proper chocie. .

If I remember correct, the given example is a similar one that you may find in GMAT.
According to a study by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, companies in the United States are providing job training and general education for nearly eight million people, about equivalent to the enrollment of the nation's four-year colleges and universities.

(A) equivalent to the enrollment of
(B) the equivalent of those enrolled in
(C) equal to those who are enrolled in
(D) as many as the enrollment of
(E) as many as are enrolled in

E is the OA here also.

This is bad question. The problem with it is that it attempts to draw a comparison between two nouns, but an adverb intervenes in the middle. This is a no-no on the GMAT.

Modifiers cannot jump over things they don't modify (even a ", -ing" is actually modifying the entire preceding clause). In this case, we see:



The modifier is intended to draw a comparison between the number of people drawn by the exhibition and the number of people who visited the impressionist show last year. However, the frequency modifier "each day" is not part of the noun phrase involving the people; instead, it describes how frequently the exhibition "drew" people. Thus, we have:



The modifier in the underlined part cannot jump over the adverbial phrase "each day" and describe the noun phrase "hundreds of people", so it must instead describe something closer. Therefore, the following comparison would actually attach to the noun "day" in the adverbial phrase. In other words, the structure forces the meaning to be that the number of days on which the exhibition drew is equivalent to the number of people that attended the impressionist show last year. This is grammatically correct, but the meaning is butchered (days compared to people).

See this-lesson-covers-a-portion-of-gmat-pill-s-sc-framework-154137.html if you want more information.

It appears that the author of this question failed in his or her attempt to mimic an official GMAT question and the rule it tests. Only rely on questions from GMAT Prep (tests, exam pack, or question packs), GMAT OG's (any version, including verbal), or GMAT Paper Tests. (Even those have problems sometimes, but it happens much less frequently.)

The exhibition of ancient Egyptian funerary art — imposing statues, intricately painted coffins, and numerous accoutrements, drew hundreds of people each day, equivalent to the number of visitors to last year’s Impressionist show.

Question's construction is not fine, ending hyphen is required instead of comma.

The exhibition of ancient Egyptian funerary art — imposing statues, intricately painted coffins, and numerous accoutrements — drew hundreds of people each day as many as (people ellipse) visited last year’s Impressionist show.

‘Equivalent’ implies more than just numerical comparison, so A and B are out.

C is comparing numbers to people, so out.

D is comparing numbers to the visitation… which is even more inaccurate.



E is the only one that makes sense.

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.