The incidence of rape in rural areas is equally high or more so that

Hi Sonakshi,

If you re-read the sentences with options plugged in, you'll notice that in rest 4 options, "incident of rapes" is being compared with "urban areas". That is improper comparison. E rectifies this mistake.
That's my opinion, maybe someone else can explain better.


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The incidence of rape in rural areas is as high as it is in urban areas if not higher.

IMHO IT refers to The incidence of rape

Further the sentence uses correct usage of the idiomatic expression : As X as Y

Hence correcr answer will be (E)

Lets look at this contruction
X is greater than or equal to Y -- both greater than and equal to point to Y

Now lets see what Y is in the problem statement

The incidence of rape in rural areas is equally high or more so than in urban areas.

(A) equally high or more so than in urban areas
(B) equal to or higher than in urban areas -- equal to what ??
(C) as high as in urban areas or more-- or more what ?
(D) equal to, if not more, than in urban areas-- equal to than in??
(E) as high as it is in urban areas, if not higher -- the most accurate sentence is option E .IT points to "incidence of rape"

Imo E.
Rest all seem awkward. Let me know OA.

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equally high or more so than in urban areas.

equally high or more than in urban areas is the correct construction. Idiomatically More So is wrong

Usual caveats apply here about non-official questions: the GMAT spends somewhere between $1500 and $3000 developing each question, and even the best test-prep companies can't compete. This one certainly isn't terrible, but I don't think it smells quite like the real thing, either.

But all of them have clear problems, other than (E). (A), (C), and (D) all have an issue in common: they all use the word "more", and that doesn't work in this context, because you could never say that the "incidence of rape... is more" in one place than another. You could say that the "incidence... is higher", but "more" is wrong here. (If it helps, think of "frequency" as a rough synonym for "incidence" -- "the frequency... is more" doesn't work either, right?)

So for that reason, you can eliminate (A), (C), and (D). If anybody reading this is tempted by (B), check out sayantanc2k 's excellent explanation above.

I hope this helps!

The OA is E. But I think its wrong as the "it" in option E refers to "The incidence of rape in rural areas". Hence, it doesnt make sense.

Please can someone explain the correct answer.

Rest all options wrongly compare "incident of rapes" to area.. that is why I selected E.

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Hello Experts,
How can option B wrong?
She is taller than him. In this sentence we are not comparing "taller" with "him".
Similarly, option B : the incidence of rape in rural area is equal to or higher than (the incidence of rape) in urban area.

Please help me understand.

Thank you in advance,
Jat

Below are the reasoning based on which I selected "E".
(A) equally high or more so than in urban areas - Comparison is not clear ([color=#0000ff]compared to what in urban area) (urban)[/color]
(B) equal to or higher than in urban areas - Comparison is not clear ([color=#0000ff]compared to what in urban area) (urban)[/color]
(C) as high as in urban areas or more - Comparison is not clear ([color=#0000ff]compared to what in urban area) (urban)[/color]
(D) equal to, if not more, than in urban areas - Comparison is not clear ([color=#0000ff]compared to what in urban area) (urban)[/color]
(E) as high as it is in urban areas, if not higher[/quote] - Correct comparison, "it" referring to incidence of rape. . Although I am not totally satisfied with this answer, as "if not higher" changes the meaning a bit, but this is best among all options available.

GMATNinja

hi Sir,
Does not this phrase "if not higher" in option E changes the meaning ?

okay its grammatically correct but are such meaning changes acceptable on official question ?

Sure, "as high as... if not higher" would definitely mean something different than just "as high as", but I think the meaning is basically the same in all five answer choices. All of them contain "or higher" or "or more so" or something like that. So the meaning in (E) really isn't substantially different from any of the other answer choices, so it's not really a problem.

(But for what it's worth: "at least as high as" would have been a much more elegant phrase. But that wasn't an option, so...)

Anyway, I hope this helps!

IMHO,(B) can be read as :
the incidence of rape in rural area is equal to or higher than (the incidence of rape) in urban area.

Is it wrong to interpret (B) as above?
Please help rectify my understanding
Thanks

GMATNinja
I shortlisted the answers to C and E. Can you explain how E is better?

A comparison question -- The incidence of rape in rural areas vs The incidence of rape in urban areas.

(A) equally high or more so than in urban areas --- The incidence of rape in rural areas is more so than in urban areas - does it sounds good ?
(B) equal to or higher than in urban areas --- equal to in urban area. ---- does this sound alright ?
(C) as high as in urban areas or more --- incidence vs area comparison; classic comparison mistake.
(D) equal to, if not more, than in urban areas --- equal to that of in urban area would have been right.
(E) as high as it is in urban areas, if not higher --- it refers to 'incidence'. make perfect sense now.

B. ---The incidence of rape in rural areas is equal to or higher than in urban areas--- The question is --equal to or higher than what-- in urban areas?. The second arm of the comparison seems to be missing. That is why B cannot be counted.

MANHATTAN REVIEW OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

Equally high or more so’ is idiomatically incorrect. B is also idiomatically incorrect. The incidence of something somewhere could be equal to the incidence of something somewhere else, but not just equal to somewhere else. In choice C, or more what? Choice D is also incomplete. Equal to what? The only answer choices which is clear is choice E, the correct answer.