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PARVEEN CHAUDHARY
 
 

LET US COMPARE

by PARVEEN CHAUDHARY Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:08 am

1)Helen eats more apples than Henry.
Is this sentence correct?
Or should we write:
2)Helen eats more apples than Henry does.
What I intend to ask is-can the first sentence be claimed wrong on the pretext that its meaning is not clear,as in:

3)Helen loves more apples than Henry.
Which may mean:
4)Helen loves more apples than Henry does.
5)Helen loves more apples than she loves Henry.
Can the first sentence be also construed to mean
6)Helen eats more apples than she eats Henry.
jwinawer
ManhattanGMAT Staff
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Mon Aug 16, 2004 1:15 pm
 

Re: LET US COMPARE

by jwinawer Sat Oct 04, 2008 6:41 pm

PARVEEN CHAUDHARY Wrote:1)Helen eats more apples than Henry.
Is this sentence correct?
Or should we write:
2)Helen eats more apples than Henry does.
What I intend to ask is-can the first sentence be claimed wrong on the pretext that its meaning is not clear,as in:

3)Helen loves more apples than Henry.
Which may mean:
4)Helen loves more apples than Henry does.
5)Helen loves more apples than she loves Henry.
Can the first sentence be also construed to mean
6)Helen eats more apples than she eats Henry.


Good questions.
1: OK. "more apples than Henry" is clear and grammatical.
2. Probably OK too, but "Does" is unnecessary. And on the GMAT, if the "does" were included at all, it would more likely say "Helen eats more apples than does Henry."
3:I don't think this one is amiguous either, but if you changed it to "Helen loves apples more than Henry" then it would be ambiguous and problematic.

So the specific meaning of the words matters. If you changed it to "Henry eats more apples than oranges", now we clearly mean that the number of apples Henry eats is greater than the number of oranges Henry eats. It does not mean that the number of apples Henry eats is greater than the number of apples oranges eats.