Inuits of the Bering Sea were in isolation from contact with

[Aj]

. Inuits of the Bering Sea were in isolation from contact with Europeans longer than Aleuts or Inuits of the North Pacific and northern Alaska.
(A) in isolation from contact with Europeans longer than
(B) isolated from contact with Europeans longer than
(C) in isolation from contact with Europeans longer than were
(D) isolated from contact with Europeans longer than were
(E) in isolation and without contacts with Europeans longer than

[ank]

Is OA C?

[surbhi.s.gupta]

D???

[RonPurewal]

this is (d).

* "isolated" is plainly better than "in isolation", so we can narrow the problem to (b) and (d) right away.
and if you entertained the thought of choosing (e) even for two seconds, you really need to read through a bunch of correct answers - just read through the correct answers - to get a handle for what the correct sort of english looks like on these things. "in isolation and without contacts" is not only laughably wordy, but also redundant (it says exactly the same thing twice).

before we look at the actual difference between (b) and (d), a general takeaway:
* if you have 2 ANSWER CHOICES THAT DIFFER ONLY IN THE PRESENCE/ABSENCE OF A LITTLE WORD, then CHANCES ARE THAT THE LITTLE WORD IS NECESSARY. i can't guarantee this 100%, but LOOK FOR AN AMBIGUITY that arises if the little word is omitted.
* if the little word isn't the _sole_ difference between 2 answer choices, then try to concentrate on the other differences between the answer choices first.

in this problem, (b) is ambiguous. it could mean one of the following 2 things: ("BI" = bering inuits, "E" = europeans, "A" = aleuts etc.)
* BI were isolated from E longer than BI were isolated from A
* BI were isolated from E longer than A were isolated from E
we can't tell.
if you add the "were", then the meaning is narrowed down to the latter of these two possibilities.

--

analogy:
i know more about shakespeare than my brother
ambiguous.
two ways we can resolve this problem by adding little words:
1) i know more about shakespeare than does my brother --> i'm a bigger shakespeare nerd than my brother is.
2) i know more about shakespeare than about my brother --> my brother and i were separated at birth, so i know more about shakespeare than i do about him.
same deal.

[atrehan]

Hi Ron,
So, essentially your point is:
If the original text has some ambiguity and when you narrow down the choices and must decide between two options:

1- maintains the same level of ambiguity as the orig sentence
2- clearly the ambiguity at the risk of altering the meaning.

One must go for (2)

What makes me uncomfortable is that by using this approach, one violates the general principle of not diverging from the meaning of the original sentence.

This makes it a bit difficult to choose which rule is more important in picking the answer choice.

Hope my question is clear.

Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

What makes me uncomfortable is that by using this approach, one violates the general principle of not diverging from the meaning of the original sentence.

that's only a rule if the original sentence actually makes sense! obviously, if the original sentence is either (a) nonsensical or (b) ambiguous, then you have to change it.

[vaibhav.alw]

Ron,
Can you please explain this example, similar to the one discussed above.
Don't understand why C is wrong.
An explanation is given in the link below. It says that we need another comparable noun after 'than' . In the sentence discussed above there is a verb after 'than' (although i agree it helps removing ambiguity).

I get confused in sentences like this.

post69119.html?sid=d41c9c0c278645d953811fc5601623b8#p69119

In his eagerness to find a city worthy of Priam, the German archaeologist Schliemann cut through Troy and uncovered a civilization a thousand years older as was the city Homer’s heroes knew.

A.older as was the city Homer’s heroes knew
B.more ancient than the city known to Homer’s heroes
C.older than was the city known to Homer’s heroes
D.more ancient of a city than Homer’s heroes knew
E.older of a city than was the one known to Homer’s heroes

Ans B

[jlucero]

I'm not sure where you found the question that you mention, but if it's not GMAT Prep, we can't discuss it here. To keep these forums available, we can't quote any OG problems. And, after a simple Google search, it looks like this question isn't from an OG, but from some person's cheat sheet GMAT document WHICH ARE OFTEN INCORRECT. Do not use these resources to get better at Official problems, use GMAT Prep and OG questions.

That said, the original GMAT Prep has a comparison set up:

Inuits (of the Bering Sea) were in isolation from contact with Europeans longer than Aleuts or Inuits (of the Northern Pacific).

(1) X was in isolation from contact with Y longer than Z.
vs
(2) X was in isolation from contact with Y longer than was Z.

In this case, you need to use meaning to know whether to include a verb in a comparison. Are we saying the Bering Sea Inuits were isolated from Europeans longer than the Bering Sea Inuits were isolated from Aleuts/Inuits of the Northern Pacific (sentence 1)? Or are we saying the Bering Sea Inuits were isolated from Europeans longer than the Aleuts/Inuits WERE isolated from the Europeans (sentence 2)?

Here's another example:

Jenny is better friends with Stacy than Nicole. (Stacy vs Nicole)
vs
Jenny is better friends with Stacy than Nicole is. (Jenny is friends with Stacy vs Nicole is friends with Stacy)

Adding a verb helps us to compare clauses. Without a verb, we are comparing nouns.

[kiranck007]

this is (d).

("BI" = bering inuits, "E" = europeans, "A" = aleuts etc.)
* BI were isolated from E longer than BI were isolated from A
* BI were isolated from E longer than A were isolated from E
we can't tell.
if you add the "were", then the meaning is narrowed down to the latter of these two possibilities.

Hi,
Literal expansion of choice D is
Inuits of the Bering Sea were isolated from contact with Europeans longer than were Aluets or Inuits of the North Pacific and northers Alaska.

But, the expected answer seem to be
Inuits of the Bering Sea were isolated from contact with Europeans longer than Aluets or Inuits of the North Pacific and northers Alaska were <isolated from Europeans>


Above doesnt seem to be a meaningful sentence. Are there any assumptions made in the above sentence?

[RonPurewal]

Hi,
Literal expansion of choice D is
Inuits of the Bering Sea were isolated from contact with Europeans longer than were Aluets or Inuits of the North Pacific and northers Alaska.

But, the expected answer seem to be
Inuits of the Bering Sea were isolated from contact with Europeans longer than Aluets or Inuits of the North Pacific and northers Alaska were <isolated from Europeans>

there's zero difference between these sentences. they're exactly the same.
the latter isn't as good stylistically (because there are so many modifiers intervening between the subject and the helping verb), but that's the only difference; you will not be asked to decide between the two.

[xiaolanjingheleaf]

this is (d).

analogy:
i know more about shakespeare than my brother
ambiguous.
two ways we can resolve this problem by adding little words:
1) i know more about shakespeare than does my brother --> i'm a bigger shakespeare nerd than my brother is.
2) i know more about shakespeare than about my brother --> my brother and i were separated at birth, so i know more about shakespeare than i do about him.
same deal.

Hi, Ron, I am wondering if the analogy you given may have no ambiguity because "my brother" requires "knows" not "know". Since "knows" does not appear in the sentence, it cannot be omitted.

Thanks for helping.

[RonPurewal]

Comparisons don't require the same form of a verb.

E.g., I am taller than my brother is a perfectly valid comparison.
It doesn't matter that am would conjugate differently for my brother (my brother is). It's still the same verb.

In fact, this latitude even extends to versions with helping verbs.
E.g., Sarah eats faster than her brother ever could is also a legitimate sentence; you don't specifically need to write could eat.

[JbhB682]

Hi Experts - I wanted to talk about parallelism in option B ... There are two possibilities when it comes to option B

Wanted to test if my parallelism between the two meanings in option B is accurate

meaning 1)

Inuits were isolated from contact with
Europeans (X marker)
LONGER THAN
Aleuts or Inuits of NP and NA (Y marker)

Can i think of the With in the Red appling to both X and Y markers ? This is also termed as ellipsis per my understanding

meaning 2)

Inuits were isolated from contact with
Europeans (X marker)
LONGER THAN
Aleuts or Inuits of NP and NA (Y marker)

Is that how the parallelism is working in meaning # 2 ?

It seems "Were" has to be outside the X marker in this case so as to be able to be applied to the Y marker in this case

[esledge]

I might be missing something about your questions about "with" and "were" (and I think you are asking about the first "were" from the non-underlined portion, which is the only one in (B)?). Let's use a simpler sentence to illustrate the issue.

Choice (B) is like: X was walking with Y longer than Z.

(B) is wrong because it can be interpreted two ways:
Meaning 1: (X was walking with Y) longer than (X was walking with Z).
Meaning 2: (X was walking with Y) longer than (Z was walking with Y).

The ambiguity is about the role that Z is playing in the sentence: Is Z acting as the subject or object? Is Z parallel to X or to Y?
Notice how I repeated the verb "was walking" above to clarify Z's relationship to the verb (Is Z doing the action or receiving the action?). The GMAT might not be that redundant, but would still have to add something to make Z's role clear.

For correct Meaning 1, the GMAT might say: X was walking with Y longer than with Z. (the repeated "with" makes Y = Z)
For correct Meaning 2, the GMAT might say: X was walking with Y longer than Z was. (the repeated "was" makes X = Z)
Where the bold text is the root phrase and the underlined parts are the parallel elements.

As a general rule, extra verbs in a comparison question are there to fix ambiguous parallelism; I can't think of a time when the extra verb created a problem. When in doubt, choose the comparison with the extra verb. (Between B and D, choose D.)