This year, advertising costs accounted for more than 5 percent of the

Question

This year, advertising costs accounted for more than 5 percent of the popular hygiene product company's expenses,  a greater percentage than it was  in any previous fiscal year.

a. a greater percentage than it was 
b. a greater percentage than 
c. a greater percentage than they have been 
d. which is greater than was so 
e. which is greater than it has been

lastshot · Answer

It seems to be C, !!!

As Comparison is between advertisement costs of this year with that of previous year ...
B seems to compare percentage of popular hygiene product company's expenses...which is not the motive of the sentence !!!

Plz share the source of this problem

Regards
LS

aditya8062 · Answer

B seems best :   a greater percentage than

what is the source?

LaxAvenger · Answer

no, for answer C "they" is not clearly linked to our comparison of the percentage. First of all, "they" can be linked to advertisement costs or company's expenses. We want to compare the percentage, which would be "it", not "they". Choice B clearly compares the percentages. Also "have been" is not the correct tense here. We compare a percentage figure of last year, which was valid in the past and now is not valid anymore because we are in the current year, with a percentage figure of the present. 
Let's assume we are in October 2014 and compare our percentage with our percentage of last year. Than the percentage of last year is not valid anymore until 01.01.2014. And not until October 2014, which is the present.

I hope I could help.

nuttyxtreme · Answer

Hi can anyone help me with why option A is wrong
Couldn't "it" refer to "percentage"?

devavrat · Answer

Pls explain the difference between option A and B
Not able to get the answer

Chethan92 · Answer

In A, you have IT, which doesn't have a clear antecedent. you are comparing accounting costs, which is plural. Hence A is wrong.

devavrat · Answer

Are we comparing the percentage or the advertising costs?

thangvietnam · Answer

this is exactly similar to gmatprep question " a greater proportion than in previous election", pls, google if you want to see it.

the golden rule is use parallelism to find the cut off phrase. if you do not find the cut off phrase or if we find two possible phrase (ambiguous case), the sentence is wrong. 
if the second part contain helping verb, the first part must contain the same helping verb, maybe in different tense
if the second part contain a form of to be, the second part must contain a form of to be
if the second part contain do,did, the first part must contain action verb
above is Ron's rule.

choice c.
"than they have been" can be parallel with "costs accounted". and we have "than they have been counted". no sense, bingo. this is wrong.
choice a and e
"it was" and "it has been" can not parallel with any preceding phrase. we can not find a parallelism and, so, of course, can not find the cut off phrase. wrong
choice d
which is greater than "which was so in any previous years". no meaning.

choice b. we can go to oa now. but we need to fully understand our choice a. 
if we see only short preposition phrase in second part of comparison, possibly a long sentence is cut off. 
this is hard case. try to find our LONG sentence which is cut off
a greater percentage than the percentage the costs accounted in any previous year. bingo. this is good.

a case in which full clause except the adverb of the new clause is cut off is terribly hard because it is not realize the cut off long full clause and, so, we can not accept the choice easily. 
in this case we do not use "that/those" in the second part of comparison, but use a preposition phrase as the adverb of the full cut off clause.

we use "that/those " when the two nouns are different because their adjectival phrases are different. look at the following from og 2020

Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.

(A) a similar period

(B) a similar period’s

(C) in a similar period

(D) that in a similar period

(E) that of a similar period

I already explained why choice d is wrong. pls, google to find this problem in gmatclub to better understand both questions.

VerbalBot · Answer

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This year, advertising costs accounted for more than 5 percent of the

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This year, advertising costs accounted for more than 5 percent of the

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