To relieve anxiety, moderate exercise can be equally effective as, and

'A' seems to be the best option.

The adverb equally takes the place of the first as in the typical as...as construction, so an as before effective isn't necessary. Using but would inappropriately imply that addictive is a counterpoint or contradiction to being effective.

My take is D

as... as makes this complete idiom , i am not sure whether usage of equally means you need only one as

Eventhough D has the correct idiom, but presence of 'equally' mars its use, hence E. Also, in A, there is wrong comparison.

Interesting choices between A and E.

Let's remove the less addictive part, the sentence becomes To relieve anxiety, moderate exercise can be equally effective most sedatives. if we choose E as the option. Something is missing here.
Granted that the question perhaps should have included as before "equally" to make it idiomatically proper.

If we use A as the option then -
To relieve anxiety, moderate exercise can be equally effective as most sedatives.
To relieve anxiety, moderate exercise can be less addictive than most sedatives.

{A} in my opinion is the best answer for this question.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/as- ... -t273.html

Although the OA is D as the poster on MGMAT forum said, the MGMAT instructor also comment that choice E is wrong answer. We should obsess to this sentence.

Hope that helps

According to me answer is E.

In D as effective as and equally are redundant.

Please address my query.

Here the word "equally" modifies the terms "as effective as" and "less addictive". This means that moderate exercise is equally likely to be effective as well as less addictive than sedatives.

"Equally" is an adverb and must modify a verb. Here "equally" modifies "can be". Nonetheless I can probably understand what you are pointing at:

The gift is equally a boon and a curse. : The gift has two qualities which are equal: a boon and a curse - goodness of boon and badness of curse are equal ( assuming they can be measured in suitable units).

Exercise is equally effective and addictive. This structure is alright since there are two adjectives (effective and addictive) that are equal (again assuming they can be measured in suitable units)

But, the following structure seems to me somewhat awkward:
Exercise is equally as effective as and less addictive than ..... This structure does not have two adjectives that can be said to be equal. It is awkward to say "as effective as" and "less addictive" are equal - that would imply that the equality of effectiveness and the "less"-ness of "addictive"-ness are equal - a very awkward implication.

Yet, in absence of any other grammatically correct option, we have to select D.

The correct idioms are - ' as X as Y ' and ' A less than B '
Only option D has the correct idiom construction .
In Option E if the part within commas is left unread, then 'effective does not go with most sedatives '

To relieve anxiety, moderate exercise can be equally effective as, and less addictive than, most sedatives.

As can be used in four forms
- Comparison - Life can be as fun as you want.
- Simultaneous action - As I was travelling in subway, I noticed a thief running after stealing a purse.
- Reason - I dont want to buy donughts as restaurant has a long queue
- Presenting role/function - She took care of her as a mother.

Here, as is used for comparison.

With this understanding, lets see what the options can be.

A. effective as, and - We need as effective as here because that is the correct idiom form when comparing otherwise this would mean. That exercise is working as a sedative.

B. as effective as, while being - correct usage of first idiom, but while being gives wrong meaning.

C. effectively equal to, but - equally effectively equal to

D. as effective as, and - Correct usage of idiom

E. effective, and - No comparison so wrong because we are comparing here.

A. effective as, and
This even though feels like the answer however the absence of as in the front even though makes it akward is the correct comparison


B. as effective as, while being
This lacks and otherwise provides distorted meaning

C. effectively equal to, but
but isn't the right usage

D. as effective as, and
This even though is a tad too akward however provides the right meaning and comparison

E. effective, and
has as missing in the sentence which otherwise wouldn't complete the comparison

Hence IMO D

For D to be the answer, "equally" needs to be underlined in the question statement.
"equally as effective as" feels redundant and and awkward.

If "equally" is not underlined then A seems to be the best option.

I am confused with choices B and D. Could someone please explain why using 'while being' will be incorrect. Moreover, could you please provide the scenario where using 'while being' will be appropriate.

Thanks in advance.

Help me with this one:

To relieve anxiety, moderate exercise can be
1. equally effective
and
2. less addictive
than, most sedatives.
What's wrong with this?? E has that parallelism

Hello jim441,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option E lacks an appropriate preposition ("as" in Option D) to act as a comparison marker between "moderate exercise can be" and "most sedatives (are)".

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

Without a doubt you must be familiar with the quant expressions "greater than or equal to" and "less than or equal to".
Do you understand why both "than" and "to" are needed in each of these?

Without both of them, you end up constructing one of the two halves unidiomatically. E.g., if you just write "greater or equal to", then that construction implies that "to" is distributed to both parallel parts—giving "greater to" and "equal to". The latter of these is fine, but the former is WRONG (unidiomatic).


Same thing in your question here.
You can't say "less addictive as..."—because "less as" is an unidiomatic pairing—so, you explicitly need the "than" to pair with "less".

A. effective as, and

here we need another "as" to make it a valid comparison between the exercise and most sedatives

B. as effective as, while being

"while" conveys that there is an specific state of moderate exercise in which it can be equally as effective as most sedatives. Intead, we want to make it a more broad statement. out.

C. effectively equal to, but

the meaning changes to effectively equal, not "as effective" anymore. In addition, "but" is used to make a contrast and we dont want to highlight a contrast here.

D. as effective as, and

looks good

E. effective, and

it seems that here we have: equally effective than and less effective than (first part is wrong).

Answer is D)