According to a Recent Study, Retirees in the United States are Four Times GMAT Sentence Correction

Question: According to a recent study, retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children as to receive it from them.

1. retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children as
2. retirees in the United States are four times as likely to give regular financial aid to their children as it is for them
3. retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children than
4. it is four times more likely for retirees in the United States to give regular financial aid to their children than they are
5. it is four times as likely that retirees in the United States will give their children regular financial aid as they are

Correct Answer: C
Explanation: “According to…, retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children than to receive it…” – Correct. The passage claims a recent study that retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children. They are not likely to receive it from them. This answer choice satisfies the intended meaning of the passage. The answer choice uses an accurate idiomatic structure. The expression “retirees… are more likely to give… than to receive...” is structurally parallel. Hence, there lies no parallelism error in this answer choice. Moreover, all pronouns in this statment are in agreement. Therefore, option C is the correct answer since it satisfies the rules of grammar. Let’s take a look at the other options:

Option A
“According to…, retirees in the United States are four times more likely to give regular financial aid to their children as to receive it...”  – Incorrect. This answer choice does not hold the proper idiomatic construction. The expression “more likely to give...as to receive” distorts the parallelism of the sentence. The idiomatic construction should be “more… than” to make the structure of the statement correct. The first part of the sentence needs to be parallel to the second part to satisfy the meaning of the sentence. Therefore, option A is the incorrect answer choice as it does not satisfy the rules of grammar. Hence, option A gets eliminated.

Option B
“According to…, retirees in the United States are four times as likely to give regular financial aid to their children as it is for them to...”  – Incorrect. This answer choice consists of issues regarding pronoun agreement. The singular pronoun “it” used in this answer choice indicates to the plural subject “retirees”. Therefore there lies a pronoun error since a singular pronoun can never refer to a plural subject. Moreover, this answer choice is not structurally parallel. The expression “as likely to give... as it is for them...” is a correct idiom but is not parallel to each other. The idiomatic construction should be “as likely as” to make the structure of the statement correct. Therefore, option B is the incorrect answer choice as it does not satisfy the rules of grammar. Hence, option B gets eliminated.

Option D
“According to…, it is four times more likely for retirees in the United States to give regular financial aid to their children than they are to…” – Incorrect. The expression “to give...than they are to” used in this answer choice is not structurally parallel. Therefore, there lies a parallelism error in this answer choice. The idiomatic construction should be “it is...more likely… than it is” to make the structure of the statement correct. Moreover, the pronoun “it” is incorrectly used in this statement. It is required to remember the fact that pronouns always require antecedents. However, option D uses the pronouns without any antecedent. Therefore, option D is the incorrect answer choice as it does not satisfy the rules of grammar. Hence, option D gets eliminated.

Option E
“According to…, it is four times as likely that retirees in the United States will give their children regular financial aid as they are to…” – Incorrect. The pronoun “it” is incorrectly used in this statement. It is required to remember the fact that pronouns always require antecedents. However, option E uses the pronouns without any antecedent. Moreover, this answer choice consists of a parallelism error in the sentence. The expression “as likely that….as they are” used in this answer choice is not structurally parallel. The idiomatic construction should be “it is...as likely… as it is” to make the structure of the statement correct. Therefore, option E is the incorrect answer choice as it does not satisfy the rules of grammar. Hence, option E gets eliminated.

“According to a recent study, retirees in the United States are four times”- is a GMAT sentence correction question of the GMAT exam. These sorts of questions consist of grammatical errors in the underlined part of the sentence. The candidates need to verify the pronouns and pronoun phrases in the sentence. The candidates need to examine whether the structure of the sentence is parallel or not. The candidates must verify the idiomatic construction of the sentence to determine the correct answer by applying concepts or ideas. The candidates need to choose the correct statement given in the options. The GMAT sentence correction section requires good grammar skills since the candidate has to identify common grammatical errors. GMAT sentence correction is a part of GMAT verbal.

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