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OptimusPrepJanielle
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 22 Jun 2016, 22:18
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Commitment is uncountable hence you need less not smaller.
Eliminate A and C
Option B incorrectly compares commitments to parents and grandparents. Eliminate

Between D and E, option E changes the meaning by using lessening.

Correct Option: D
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 20 Aug 2016, 12:38
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vikramm
There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe that young people have a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents and that the source of the change lies in the collapse of the "work ethic".
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1) ".." - smaller is wrongly used for commitment.
2) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents
this choice neeeds verb because peope have commitment and parents HAD. whenever the tense shift is there we cannot ellipse the verb in comparison.
3) a smaller commitment to work and a career than that of their parents and grandparents
4) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents had
5) a lessening of the commitment to work and a career that their parent and grandparents had
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe Updated on: 01 Sep 2020, 01:21
Originally posted by thangvietnam on 01 Aug 2019, 09:09.
Last edited by thangvietnam on 01 Sep 2020, 01:21, edited 1 time in total.
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe that young people have a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents and that the source of the change lies in the collapse of the "work ethic."


(A) a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents

(B) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents

(C) a smaller commitment to work and a career than that of their parents and grandparents

(D) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents had

(E) a lessening of the commitment to work and a career that their parent and grandparents had

ellipsis can make 2 error.
1 ambiguity,
in the right part after "than", we do not know which entity of the two entities is compared

2. verb tense
verb is cut off in the part after "than", the verb in this part is the same as the verb in the part before "than". this can be illogical

a skill important to realize errors is to FOCUS ON THE VERB OF THE PART AFTER "THAN".

applying this skill, focus on the verb of the part after "than".

without a verb in the part after "than". the sentence could be either

they have smaller commitment to work than to their father
they have smaller commitment to work than their father have

this is one error.

second error is
if the entity compared is correct, the verb tense could be wrong.
we can infer the following

they have smaller commitment to work than their father HAVE.

this is still wrong HAVE should be "had".
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 27 Aug 2019, 08:29
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Quote:
There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe that young people have a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents and that the source of the change lies in the collapse of the "work ethic".
1) ".."
2) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents
3) a smaller commitment to work and a career than that of their parents and grandparents
4) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents had
5) a lessening of the commitment to work and a career that their parent and grandparents had
Hi,

there are two errors--


1) firstly as mentioned by you is usage of smaller instead of less...
smaller is an adjective actually talking of the size ..
boeing 757 is smaller than airbus xyz..
less is more for abstract things.. and means smaller extent etc..

2) 'what does " that of" stands for..
that cannot be smaller commitment ...
the Verb have should be the one used in later half to show parallelism--had--
example --
I have a smaller car than that of my father --WRONG
I have a smaller car than my father had..
OR
My car is smaller than that of my father..

Hope it helps
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1. I have a smaller car than that of my father --WRONG
2. I have a smaller car than my father had. - Correct
3. My car is smaller than that of my father. - Correct

Q1- In sentence 1, does 'that' refer to a noun 'car' or does it to refer to the entire noun phrase 'a smaller car'?
In general, while using that/those are a pronoun or 'it' does it need to refer to the entire noun phrase (along with adjectives) or it can refer to only a part of the noun phrase?
Q2 - Though I do agree that even if that refers to 'car', sentence 1 sounds illogical - I have a smaller car than car of my father
Q3- In sentence 2, we compare actions I have a smaller car vs my father had
Q4- In sentence 3, we compare the cars directly instead of comparing actions?

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , GMATGuruNY , VeritasPrepBrian , MartyTargetTestPrep , DmitryFarber , VeritasKarishma , generis , jennpt other experts - please enlighten
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 27 Aug 2019, 09:56
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Skywalker18

1. I have a smaller car than that of my father --WRONG
2. I have a smaller car than my father had. - Correct
3. My car is smaller than that of my father. - Correct

Q1- In sentence 1, does 'that' refer to a noun 'car' or does it to refer to the entire noun phrase 'a smaller car'?
In general, while using that/those are a pronoun or 'it' does it need to refer to the entire noun phrase (along with adjectives) or it can refer to only a part of the noun phrase?
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The main issue with 1. is that it illogically compares I with car (of my father).

Quote:
Q2 - Though I do agree that even if that refers to 'car', sentence 1 sounds illogical - I have a smaller car than car of my father
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Yes, for the reason I mentioned above.

Quote:
Q3- In sentence 2, we compare actions I have a smaller car vs my father had
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Yes.

Quote:
Q4- In sentence 3, we compare the cars directly instead of comparing actions?
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Well, 3. is correct, because it is correctly comparing my car with that (car) of my father.
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 27 Aug 2019, 10:31
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Skywalker18

1. I have a smaller car than that of my father --WRONG
2. I have a smaller car than my father had. - Correct
3. My car is smaller than that of my father. - Correct

Q1- In sentence 1, does 'that' refer to a noun 'car' or does it to refer to the entire noun phrase 'a smaller car'?
"In general, while using that/those as a pronoun or 'it' as a pronoun does that/those or it needs to refer to the entire noun phrase (along with adjectives) or it can refer to only a part of the noun phrase?
The main issue with 1. is that it illogically compares I with car (of my father).

Quote:
Q2 - Though I do agree that even if that refers to 'car', sentence 1 sounds illogical - I have a smaller car than car of my father
Yes, for the reason I mentioned above.

Quote:
Q3- In sentence 2, we compare actions I have a smaller car vs my father had
Yes.

Quote:
Q4- In sentence 3, we compare the cars directly instead of comparing actions?
Well, 3. is correct, because it is correctly comparing my car with that (car) of my father.
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EducationAisle
Can you please also answer "In general, while using that/those as a pronoun or 'it' as a pronoun, does 'that'/'those' or 'it' needs to refer to the entire noun phrase (along with adjectives) or it can refer to only a part of the noun phrase?"
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 27 Aug 2019, 12:17
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chineseburned
I think you can use "did" here instead of "had" and it would still be correct. But it is not among the answer choices.
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If you look at the sentence, you'll see that 'did' does not maintain parallelism with the first part of the sentence. The youngsters 'have' and elders 'did' does not make sense. I am sure you cannot use did here.
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 27 Aug 2019, 22:34
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Skywalker18
Can you please also answer "In general, while using that/those as a pronoun or 'it' as a pronoun, does 'that'/'those' or 'it' needs to refer to the entire noun phrase (along with adjectives) or it can refer to only a part of the noun phrase?"
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In comparison sentences, in general, that/those can refer to a part, while it refers to the entire noun phrase.
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 28 Aug 2019, 23:32
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comparison sentences are hard.
comparion is about two nouns, which can be subjects or objects of the two clauses which are two parts of comparison.

if the two nouns as subjects are compared, we can easily realize the errors. but if the two nouns as objects are compared, we have difficulty.

so, the first thing we do when faced with comparison is to ask 'dose it compared subjects or objects".

if you focus on whether subjects or objects are compared, we can realize the ambiguity soon.
because when you ask yourself this question, you realize ambiguity immediately. you will know that without helping verb or preposition, the second clause of comparison can give 2 interpretations of meaning

now, in this problem, we see that the subjects of the two clauses are compared. so, without helping verb "had", the meaning can be "than to their parents". this is ambiguity.

sometimes, it is easy to explain the error but how to realize the error requires another skill. the skill is " ask the questions of wheather subjects or objects are compared?
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 06 Sep 2019, 08:02
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walker
I have a few questions for gurus :)

1. Why is the use "had" but not "did" in "less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents had" correct?

2. Is it possible to use "a smaller commitment" instead of "less of a commitment"

Thanks in advance.
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choice D is best. but "had" in choice d is problematic. "did " is correct. if we use "had" , "had"must be helping verb, and if "had" is helping verb, there must be a verb after "have " in the preceding clause, so that this verb is implied after "had".

I dont agree with "had" in choice d
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 06 Sep 2019, 10:54
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I think the word "had" in option D changed the game for me. I was really confused between a smaller commitment and less of a commitment. I picked less of a commitment because two sects of people are being compared..
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 04 Mar 2020, 09:36
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Whenever we are comparing two things whose timeline are different we must repeat the "be" verb .
In this case we have to repeat either did/had

E is trash . D wins
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 16 Apr 2020, 20:47
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"Commitment" cannot be measured, i.e, it is not something that is countable. Hence, (A) and (C) are eliminated since they both use '...smaller....'

(E) says "young people have a lessening of the commitment..." - this is super awkward. Hence, we can eliminate it.

This leaves us with (B) and (D). To find the best option between (B) and (D), we need to look towards the end of these answer choices for the grammatical structure used. Right away, we can see the difference in the usage of 'had'

Since the "commitment of the parents and grandparents" had already occurred in the past and is now considered complete, we need to use the past perfect tense. Only (D) has this incorporated. Hence, (D) is the right option
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 04 Sep 2020, 03:57
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe that young people have a smaller commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents and that the source of the change lies in the collapse of the "work ethic."

Meaning Analysis: in the US and Western EU there is a common belief. This belief is that young people currently have less of a commitment towards work and career than their parents and grandparents did. They blame this commitment issue to the diminishing "work ethic"

Error Analysis:
(1) Sentence structure - Commitment is not countable. We say "less commitment" and not "small commitment"
(2) Comparison error - We are comparing the current commitment that young people have to the commitment that their parents and grandparents had in the past

(A) Incorrect for the reasons mentioned above.

(B) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents. Incorrect. There is ambiguity as to what we are comparing out here. One could read this sentence in two ways

(1) Young people have less of a commitment to work and a career than to their parents and grandparents
(2) Young people have less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents did

(C) a smaller commitment to work and a career than that of their parents and grandparents. Incorrect. This choice repeats error (1) of choice (A). We also have a comparison error out here. This sentence is essentially saying that "Young people have less of a commitment to work and a career than [i]to the commitment of their parents and grandparents" [/i] illogical

(D) less of a commitment to work and a career than their parents and grandparents had. Correct Note - we could also use "did" out here.

E) a lessening of the commitment to work and a career that their parent and grandparents had. Incorrect. "a lessening" is unidiomatic

Correct Choice: (D)
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 29 Sep 2020, 10:28
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First split would be b/w less and smaller. 'Less' would be generally used for abstract/ qualitative things, while small would be used for quantitative perspective.
After this split, we are left with option B and option D. In option B, the commitment has been compared to parents and that is bizarre. Hence, option D is the right choice.
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There is a widespread belief in the United States and Western Europe 08 Apr 2026, 08:03
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