Three percent of beer volume is alcohol, compared with

Question

Three percent of beer volume is alcohol, compared with wine's twelve percent and whiskey, cognac, and rum's forty percent .

(A) Three percent of beer volume is alcohol, compared with wine's twelve percent and whiskey, cognac, and rum's forty percent.
(B) Three percent of beer volume is alcohol; of wine it is twelve percent, and of whiskey, cognac, and rum it is forty percent.
(C) By volume, beer is three percent alcohol, compared with wine, which is twelve percent alcohol; whiskey, rum, and cognac are each forty percent alcohol.
(D) The percentage of beer colume that is alcohol is three, compared with wine's twelve, whiskey's forty, cognac's forty, and rum's forty.
(E) The percentage of beer volume that is alcohol is three; that of wine is twelve, and that of whiskey, cognac, and rum is forty.

HongHu · Answer

I'd guess A. "it" in B, "which" in C doensn't have a noun to refer to. "The percentage of beer colume that is alcohol" in D and E sounds wordy.

sonaketu · Answer

B sounds better, but because of 'it' I'll choose A

tareks · Answer

B sounds off to me. too many parallel structure errors, subject-verb agreement. 

 Question for you- What is the subject here--3 percent of beer volume is alcohol??


E is the only sentence that respects the rules

qhoc0010 · Answer

uh oh!! Nobody got it right. I gonna wait for little longer then...

maaverick · Answer

I'll go with (C) Explaination in a while (currently at work, so atl+tabbing windows)

HongHu · Answer

Have we exaughsted all choices yet?

HongHu · Answer

I change my answer to (C).

(A) Three percent of beer volume is alcohol, compared with wine's twelve percent and whiskey, cognac, and rum's forty percent.
Compare beer volumn with wine, wrong

(B) Three percent of beer volume is alcohol; of wine it is twelve percent, and of whiskey, cognac, and rum it is forty percent.
"it" is wrong

(C) By volume, beer is three percent alcohol, compared with wine, which is twelve percent alcohol; whiskey, rum, and cognac are each forty percent alcohol.
Sounds right, fits parallelism

(D) The percentage of beer colume that is alcohol is three, compared with wine's twelve, whiskey's forty, cognac's forty, and rum's forty.
compare the percentage of beer volumn with wine's, not parallel

(E) The percentage of beer volume that is alcohol is three; that of wine is twelve, and that of whiskey, cognac, and rum is forty.
Compare the percentage of beer volumn with the percentage of wine, not parallel

DLMD · Answer

I initially chose B, but after reviewing your bank teller post https://www.gmatclub.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=14010 I think answer should be C

qhoc0010 · Answer

OK, now everyone seems to get it right.
OA is (C)
However, I don't understand how (C) can be correct when it said "beer  is  three percent alcohol". "beer" cannot be "a percentage" but "beer volume"  has . The use of "is" must be wrong, but "has" is better. What do you think?

I also picked (A) initially. However, the above explaination does not convince me. Obviously, (A) has correct comparision.
 Three percent of beer volume 
 vs 
 compared with  wine 's   twelve percent 

It is "wine's" and not "wine" so that is similar to "wine's volume", right?
I thought about it this way
compared with wine's     twelve percent
The  RED  part is obmitted.

Please help.

greenandwise · Answer

I picked C right away...."...beer volume..." is unidiomatic and all the choices have that except C. You don't say 90% of juice volume is water you say Juice is 90% juice by volume or 90% of the volume of juice is water.

700Plus · Answer

I know B sounds bit odd, but not clear what exactly is wrong with it. Appreciate if anybody can expalin.

HongHu · Answer

I agree with you that "has" sounds much better. I suppose you could say beer is 3% alcohol in that beer is alcohol. :-D

qhoc0010 · Answer

Well, that is the only reason why I didn't pick (C). I wonder if ETS would have some type of question that is reasonable like this?!!

praveen_rao7 · Answer

qhoc0010, good question. I wonder where this is from?

qhoc0010 · Answer

I think it is a bad question, referring to my post above: "is" vs "has"
It is from PR or Kaplan CAT

Three percent of beer volume is alcohol, compared with

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