Bunuel wrote:
While in some countries non-marital cohabitating relationships endure at the same rates found in marriages, in Europe they are
more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages.
A. more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages
B. more than twice as likely to dissolve than in marriages
C. over twice as likely to dissolve than marriages
D. over twice as likely to dissolve than in marriages
E. more than twice as likely to dissolve as marriages
VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:
The obvious comparison language in each answer indicates that this question is primarily testing comparison errors. A proper comparison must be logical, idiomatic, and parallel – this question can be answered exclusively focusing on the choice of comparison idiom but parallelism also plays a role.
A good strategy in any comparison question is to carefully ask: “What is being compared?” Here the comparison is: This type of relationship is more than twice AS likely to do something AS this type of relationship. As a result only (E) can be correct. All the others state incorrectly: This type of relationship is more than twice AS likely to do something THAN (in) this type of relationship. “As likely…than” is always incorrect but it is well hidden in this problem, so your ear may not catch the error.
The use of “in” in (B) and (D) also creates issues of parallelism, since the proper comparison is between types of relationships (the non-underlined "non-marital cohabitating relationships" must be parallel to "marriages" - the "in" would only work if the comparison were between people in non-marital relationships and those in marriages). But of course if you have already eliminated those choices for the idiomatic comparison error, you do not have to worry about this decision.
The correct answer is (E).