Although the Olympic athlete’s mother was at home watching her son

Question

Project SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC2) 
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Although the Olympic athlete’s mother was at home watching her son on television, the competition  was as exciting to her as the royal attendees sitting in the first row .

A) was as exciting to her as the royal attendees sitting in the first row

B) was as exciting to her than the royal attendees sitting in the first row

C) was as exciting to her as to the royal attendees sitting in the first row

D) was as exciting to her than to the royal attendees sitting in the first row

E) was exciting to her as to the royal attendees sitting in the first row

generis · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Project SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC2)

THE PROMPT  
 
• What two things are being compared?
→ The level of excitement created by the competition that two parties experience—a mother watching on TV and attendees sitting in the front row.
The levels of excitement are equal.

•   AS  X  AS  Y 
→ sear the  AS . . . AS  construction into your memory. 
The word  as  has many meanings.

→ If  as  is  used to compare things,  you must see  AS  X  AS  Y
NOT:  As . . . than  
NOT:  As . . . that 
NOT:  So . . . as   one exception  to this last pairing that involves negation. We can say  NOT SO MUCH X AS Y . Take a look at  this question,    here,  and at my explanation  here   . ]

THE OPTIONS  
 
→ in order to create a parallel and thus grammatical comparison, the word  to  must be placed before "the royal attendees."
Otherwise, the sentence says that the mother was as excited to see her son as she was excited to see the royal attendees sitting in the front row.
ELIMINATE A

• AS must be paired with AS, not  than.  
• Like option A, this option needs the word "to" placed before "the royal attendees" to maintain parallelism, meaningful comparison of similar things, and correct meaning
ELIMINATE B

• I do not see any errors
• This option appropriately compares the level of excitement created by the competition between the two parties, and the word  to  is inserted after the second  as 
KEEP

• In a comparison, we cannot pair  as  with  than .
 Wrong : As exciting to X than to Y
 Correct : As exciting to X as to Y
ELIMINATE D

• The first  as  in AS X AS Y is missing. The sentence is gibberish.
ELIMINATE E

The correct answer is C.

COMMENTS

Color me impressed.
Most of these answers do an outstanding job of explaining the errors.
Answers that contain explanations get kudos.
Nicely done.

Sumi1010 · Answer

In the actual sentence -
Although the Olympic  athlete’s mother  was at home watching her son on television, the competition was as exciting to her as the royal attendees sitting in the first row.

Note : The possessive pronoun "her" can refer to both  athlete's  and  athlete's mother ; however this pronoun ambiguity is not an issue in their problem as neither we know the gender of athlete nor the problem is concerned in testing it by providing many antecedents.

The correct construction is :  AS ... to X as to Y . 
Only  C  fits the bill.

zhanbo · Answer

My answer is  (C) . It took me 49 seconds.

The competition was  as  exciting to her  as  to the royal attendees. 
OR
The competition was  more  exciting to her  than  to the royal attendees.

(A) lack of parallelism between "to her" and "the royal attendees". 
(B) Incorrect use of "As ... than" 
(D) Incorrect use of "As ... than" 
(E) Missing "as" before "exciting".

kntombat · Answer

The answer to this question has to be C,     as it is the only option which is able to clearly show that the athlete's mother found the competition as exciting as did the royal attendees watching the competition from the first row."

Options B and D are out    as they are trying to compare the excitement between the athlete's mother and the royal attendees which is not the case.

Options A has a meaning issue  ,  it tries to convey that the competition was as exciting to the athlete's mother as was the presence of the royal attendees in the first row.

Options E seems awkward    and has an 'as' missing before the exciting.

The OA is C.

RajatJ79 · Answer

Although the Olympic athlete’s mother was at home watching her son on television, the competition  was as exciting to her as the royal attendees sitting in the first row .

Pre-thinking : Correct idiom use is ' as exciting to X as to Y '. The correct answer option should have ' as exciting to her as to the royal attendees '. Rest of the sentence looks fine.

A) was as exciting to her  as the  royal attendees sitting in the first row

B) was as exciting to her  than the  royal attendees sitting in the first row

C) was   as exciting to   her   as to the   royal attendees sitting in the first row

D) was as exciting to her  than to the  royal attendees sitting in the first row

E)  was exciting to  her as to the royal attendees sitting in the first row

Answer should be C .

winterschool · Answer

Although the Olympic athlete’s mother was at home watching her son on television, the competition was as exciting to her as the royal attendees sitting in the first row.

A) was  as exciting to her as the royal attendees  sitting in the first row  Incorrect

comparison error - exciting compare with royal attendees

B) was  as  exciting to her  than  the royal attendees sitting in the first row  Incorrect

correct uses - ......as.........as.......

C)  was as exciting to her as to the royal attendees sitting in the first row   Correct

D) was  as  exciting to her  than  to the royal attendees sitting in the first row  Incorrect

correct uses - ......as.........as.......

E) was  exciting to her as to the royal attendees  sitting in the first row  Incorrect

as missing before exciting , changes meaning

ramlala · Answer

Although the Olympic athlete’s mother was at home watching her son on television, the competition  was as exciting to her as the royal attendees sitting in the first row .

A) was  as exciting to her   as the royal attendees  sitting in the first row : Incorrect

B) was  as exciting to her   than the royal attendees  sitting in the first row : Incorrect

C) was  as exciting to her   as to the royal attendees  sitting in the first row : No Remarks

D) was  as exciting to her   than to the royal attendees  sitting in the first row : Incorrect

E) was  exciting to her   as to the royal attendees  sitting in the first row : Incorrect

generis · Answer

The official explanation is  here .

Although the Olympic athlete’s mother was at home watching her son

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Although the Olympic athlete’s mother was at home watching her son

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