can somebody help me out with this question?

[RonPurewal]

e. movies, fewer than the ones

Got torn by this prob at first, but finally got what it tests us on. Just need more clarification on E. Is "the ones" used correctly here? I assume it refers back to "people", so we are saying the people killed by shark are fewer than people kill by bee stings. Sounds right to me.

I know the thread is long, but please read it. (If you want to save time, just search each page for the word "ones".)

post94109.html#p94109

[rte.sushil]

Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 7:58 am
:

("Fewer than the ones" is also nonsense / unidiomatic usage -- you can't say "xxxx are fewer than yyyyy".)

e. movies, fewer than the ones

my question is why not "have been" is assumed to be hidden in the sentence?


Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies"”fewer than ones [have been] killed by bee stings
Then this sentence sounds right?

[RonPurewal]

Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies"”fewer than ones [have been] killed by bee stings
Then this sentence sounds right?

1/
This problem is just a matter of comparing the words that are actually there and seeing which choice contains the best parallelism.

If you keep it simple"”"Which choice has the words that look most like the other words?""”then this problem is straightforward.

Don't complicate the issue by imagining words that aren't actually there!

2/
Even if you had a sentence like this one, it would still be incorrect.

The red part is a complete sentence. In "fewer than ____", the blank can't be filled with a complete sentence.

[lindaliu9273]

Hi Ron,
I'm confused about B/E.
For B, what two things are actually being compared? number and number? Or people and people?

For E, I understand that "ones" cannot refer to people, but isn't it necessary to have "those"? Or else, I really don't know what "seven people" is compared with.

I totally lost with the comparision in this question.

Thank you very much!

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,
I'm confused about B/E.
For B, what two things are actually being compared? number and number? Or people and people?

The meaning of this sentence is straightforward: it's comparing the numbers of people killed by 2 different things.

Remember, the exact entities being compared are not always found on both sides of a comparison. Instead, it's the parts that differ that will always be found on both sides"”because they're different.

E.g.,
In New York, more people walk than drive to work.
We're comparing numbers of people. The parts that are actually different, though, are "walk" and "drive", so those are the things that actually appear in the comparison.

I saw more birds in the Philippines than in Malaysia.
We're comparing the numbers of birds that I saw. The parts that differ, though, are "in the Philippines" and "in Malaysia""”so those are written out.

Etc.

For E, I understand that "ones" cannot refer to people, but isn't it necessary to have "those"? Or else, I really don't know what "seven people" is compared with.

This issue is addressed in detail earlier in the thread.

[lindaliu9273]

Hello Ron,

Can you please explain what is wrong with E, I am not clear why Ones is incorrect.

Thanks,

Vineet

first, i'm about 99% sure that we are not allowed to use "ones" to refer to people.

second, i'm also about 99% sure that "THE ones" must refer back to "THE some other noun".

Hi Ron,

Can one refer to people? I don't remember manhattan book has discuss this.

Thank you.

[AbhilashM94]

Ron my man - need some help here.

So if HYPHEN works the same way a COMMA does then isn't FEWER in (B) also modifying movies?

I thought I got appositive modifiers, now it looks like I don't :(

thanks for the help!

[RonPurewal]

Ron my man - need some help here.

So if HYPHEN works the same way a COMMA does then isn't FEWER in (B) also modifying movies?

I thought I got appositive modifiers, now it looks like I don't :(

thanks for the help!

That's the correct answer choice. You're asking whether it has a meaning that's clearly nonsense.
Nope. It means what makes sense.

That kind of modifier is very, very flexible. It can basically describe almost anything you want it to describe, as long as the reference is clear enough in context.

[ZHUOC614]

Hello Ron,

I have read through the previous posts on this forum and found that people regard the "--fewer than those killed by bee stings" part as an appositive. But I thought APPOSITIVE is something like "noun + noun modifier" as defined in the Manhattan Guide for SC. I actually don't care about the "name" of this modifier, but I just what to make sure whether I have understood how appositive is used correctly. Or what the real function is this modifier? In my opinion, it's like a adjective modifier modifying "seven people". A similar case(I am talking about the bold face part in the end of the sentence):

Jack came back home late, tired and thirsty.

Am I correct?

Thanks a ton!

[RonPurewal]

In an extremely general sense, sure, you could regard those as similar.

[ZHUOC614]

Thanks a lot for your clarification!!!
You really helped me a lot!

[RonPurewal]

You're welcome.

[FanPurewal]

Very nice explaination Ron. I really appreciate your efforts.

Coming back to this question, can I say -

Only seven people this century have been killed by the GWS, the man-eater of the movies, fewer have been killed by bee strings

no.
2 problems:

#1, that's a run-on sentence. if you split it into 2 sentences -- by means of a semicolon or period -- then it's grammatically legitimate.
Only seven people this century have been killed by the GWS, the man-eater of the movies; fewer have been killed by bee stings.

#2, this sentence means exactly the opposite of the meaning of the original sentence.
if you take out the "than" and write "fewer have been killed by bee stings", you are now saying that the # killed by bee stings (note "stings", not "strings") is lower. that's the opposite of the way the comparison goes in the original sentence.

hi ron , lucero and other experts

i am wandering what is the subject and verb in this sentence below?
fewer have been killed by bee strings

please clarify, thanks !

[FanPurewal]

Only seven people this century have been killled by GWS, fewer than those have been killed by bee stings. -> Is it considered parallel?

Still wrong. You can't say "Things are fewer than other things", ever, about any things (or people or animals or whatever).
I don't have a solid explanation for you -- think of it as an idiom, if you want to -- but you can't.

In New York City, men are fewer than women. No.
In New York City, there are fewer men than women. Yes.
New York City has fewer men than women. Yes.

By the way, this will likely have zero importance on the GMAT, because, as stated above, all you need to do is look at the parallelism of the things in the comparison. But, if nothing else, it will help you become a better writer of English.

Most importantly, do not create your own versions of GMAC's sentences.
Don't do it.
Ever.
It's a complete waste of your time.

In 99% of cases when students "tweak" GMAC's sentences, their versions are wrong, for reasons that GMAC does not test. (The range of things tested on SC is a very, very small fraction of all issues in English.)
So, we end up with a situation that's like "No, that's wrong, but you don't have to know why."

Like this one.

Don't do it.

and why is the sentence above (purple) not a run-on sentence?

what is the difference ?

really need some help! thank you

[RonPurewal]

"Run-on sentence" means
(complete sentence) + , + (another complete sentence)

That's not happening here.