As Effective As

[PS]

I found a question in the Peterson's Toolkit 2005:
"To relieve anxiety, moderate exercise can be equally effective as, and less addictive than, most sedatives"

The Correct response was
as effective as, and

but "equally as effective as, and" does not sound idiomatic to me.

For me, the correct choice is
effective, and

Could you please comment on this?

As far as I am concerned, if the first response were to be correct, the difficulty level of the question would be lot higher than what it would be if the second response were to be correct. (Is this sentence correct? I dont think both alternative can be subjunctive:) )

Thanks
Pankaj

[JadranLee]

Hi Pankaj,

You're right to say that "equally as" is unidiomatic. It would never be part of the right answer choice in a real GMAT question. The other answer choice you mentioned, however, isn't right, because there needs to be an "as" after "effective".

By the way, could you please remember to post questions in their entirety, including all answer choices? Also, for copyright purposes we need users to cite both the source and the question number of any problem they post on this forum.

Thanks!

-Jad

I found a question in the Peterson's Toolkit 2005:
"To relieve anxiety, moderate exercise can be equally effective as, and less addictive than, most sedatives"

The Correct response was
as effective as, and

but "equally as effective as, and" does not sound idiomatic to me.

For me, the correct choice is
effective, and

Could you please comment on this?

As far as I am concerned, if the first response were to be correct, the difficulty level of the question would be lot higher than what it would be if the second response were to be correct. (Is this sentence correct? I dont think both alternative can be subjunctive:) )

Thanks
Pankaj