Some psychiatric studies indicate that among distin-

[Guest]

Some psychiatric studies indicate that among distin-
guished artists the rates of manic depression and major
depression are ten to thirteen times as prevalent as in
the population at large.

(A) the rates of manic depression and major depres-
sion are ten to thirteen times as prevalent as in
(B) the rates of manic depression and major depres-
sion are ten to thirteen times more prevalent
than in
(C) the rates of manic depression and major depres-
sion are ten to thirteen times more prevalent
when compared to
(D) manic depression and major depression are ten to
thirteen times as prevalent when compared to
(E) manic depression and major depression are ten
to thirteen times more prevalent than in

[Suyash]

Rates for is the correct idiom and not rates of,so can eliminate the three choices.Left with d and e.Would like to go for E for right usage.Ron here is compared to correct?Please correct me.

[Guest]

Correct Idiom: rates for

Between D and E:

D - as .. when unidiomatic


Answer: E

[RonPurewal]

Rates for is the correct idiom and not rates of

wrong.
when you're talking about the frequency with which something occurs, "rates of" is the only acceptable idiom. think about it: would you write "the rate of illiteracy in the population" or "the rate for illiteracy"? certainly the former.

you can use "the rate for", but only if you're talking about a price point.
e.g., the rate for that type of hotel room is $109 per night.

the correct rationale for eliminating the first three choices is that a rate can't be "prevalent"; a phenomenon, such as manic depression, can.
illiteracy is prevalent
the rate of illiteracy is high
both of these are correct. you can't switch either of them.

Ron here is compared to correct?Please correct me.

no, because it's redundant.
you can't say "more ... compared to"; the correct idiom is "more than".

so (e) is therefore correct.

--

QUANT DIGRESSION

by the way, this is a pet peeve of mine: "10 to 13 times AS prevalent" is NOT the same as "10 to 13 times MORE prevalent".
in particular, 13 times AS prevalent would be 12 times MORE prevalent; 13 times MORE prevalent, by contrast, would be 14 times AS prevalent. the same sort of thing holds for the smaller figure, too.
this would be a huge bone of contention if it were to appear on the quant section, so i'm not sure why the verbal authors are so lax about it.

[RohitM269]

Hi Ron,

As per MGMAT SC 6th Edition, Chapter 11 - Numbers of Comparison,

"If you want to relate the quantities by Multiplication, use times and as ... as together"
AND
"if you want to relate two quantities by addition or subtraction, use more than or less than"

We used times in above sentence, so I thought we should use "as" rather than "and". Can you please guide. I guess I did not understand the concept correctly.

[RonPurewal]

'more' goes with 'than'.
'as [adjective/adverb]' goes with 'as'.
these are very basic idioms; they are unaffected by 'N times'.

Sarah has written more articles than Joe.
Sarah has written several times more articles than Joe.