分享一篇好文章-----完全映对GMAT-SC比较结构题--另有问题请教版主

alohabrian

The American Heritage® Book of English Usage.

A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English.  1996.

2. Style: arallelism, Passives, Redundancy, and Wordiness

§ 2. comparisons with as and than

“Did you know that more people are killed each year by hogs in Indiana than by sharks?” says a writer in Scuba Magazine. You may well be wondering how many sharks there are in Indiana. In comparisons using as and than it is the second element that can give you trouble. It is easy to set up a faulty parallel, especially when prepositional phrases are involved. Consider this sentence:   I want the photos in our brochure to look as impressive as their brochure.	1
Here the writer wants to compare photos in two different brochures, but the syntax compares the photos of one brochure with the entire brochure of the other organization. To be truly parallel, the sentence must read:   I want the photos in our brochure to look as impressive as those in their brochure.	2
Note the addition of the pronoun those to counterbalance photos in the previous section of the sentence, and the repetition of the preposition in. You could, of course, repeat the noun photos instead of using a pronoun. Here is a similar example:   They felt that the condition of the new buildings was not much better than the old ones.	3
In this sentence the condition of the new buildings is compared with the old buildings themselves, not with their condition. To make the sentence parallel, you must add the pronoun that to balance the noun condition. Again, you can repeat the noun if this is more to your liking, but in either case the prepositional phrase with of must follow:   They felt that the condition of the new buildings was not much better than that (or the condition) of the old ones.	4
Sometimes it’s only the second preposition that gets left out in these comparative constructions, as in More cars are built in Canada than Mexico, where perfect parallelism requires … than in Mexico.	5
As and than comparisons pose additional problems when the noun following as or than is the subject or object of an implied clause. Does the sentence The employees are more suspicious of the arbitrator than the owner mean that the employees distrust the arbitrator more than they distrust the owner or that the employees distrust the arbitrator more than the owner does? To be clear you must add a verb to the second element of the comparison: The employees are more suspicious of the arbitrator than they are of the owner or The employees are more suspicious of the arbitrator than the owner is.	6
Of course, sentences containing as and than comparisons may be unambiguous but still be in need of balancing. Here are two other examples:   More than twice as many tons of corrugated cardboard are recycled each year than (are tons of) newspaper.   The factory is producing as many transmissions as (it did) last year.	7
The material in parentheses is often left out in sentences of this type, but parallelism requires it.	8
Making a syntactically imperfect comparison may not be the most grievous fault you can commit in writing, and nearly everyone makes these faults when speaking. But when you have the choice, why not be precise?

[此贴子已经被作者于2009-3-4 22:15:47编辑过]

alohabrian

另外，这句话的比较结构没看懂，请教版主。

More than twice as many
  tons of corrugated
  cardboard are recycled each year than (are tons of) newspaper.

另外对比：

GMAT OG10th Sentence Correction 187中有这样一题：

In one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, fought at Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862,
four times as many Americans were killed as would later be killed on the beaches of Normandy during
D-Day.

这两句话，是一样的结构吗？

[此贴子已经被作者于2009-3-4 22:04:21编辑过]

小贝

这句句子有点奇怪

一般是more than twice as many ...as,但这里是than...

alohabrian

恩，顶一下。

AlienX

不建議看"The American Heritage® Book of English Usage"...上次在library借了, 書還說which可以指代一個clause...看到那個usage, 我這看不下去...

天蝎座1107

以下是引用AlienX在2009-3-5 17:04:00的发言：
不建議看"The American Heritage® Book of English Usage"...上次在library借了, 書還說which可以指代一個clause...看到那個usage, 我這看不下去...

听版主的话...

手上倒是有那本很流行的the elements of style...看否？准本写申请文书前看了...

fighting127

那个usage没错了高中语法就是这个  只是GMAT里不允许了

GMAT里不允许的东西很多 所以关注OG和prep就好

写作里随便用

aeoluseros

个人意见：
More than twice as many tons of corrugated cardboard are recycled each year than (are tons of) newspaper.
是这样的,as many (...) as前面如果有一个倍数短语/词修饰时，就等于more...than，而当前面的倍数词是twice时就习惯于用twice as many (...) as.但是我也没有见过twice as many (...) than.
或许The American Heritage® Book of English Usage认为如果前面有倍数词那么就视as many和more为等价的.
那么原句就可以转为：
(More than) two times more tons of corrugated carboard are recycled each year than newspaper.
这样就可以看出来第一个more than是修饰two times的，即两倍多.
则原句的含义是：
皱纸板回收的吨数是报纸回收吨数的两倍多。
如果去掉第一个more than，意思就是"皱纸板回收的吨数是报纸回收吨数的两倍"。
GMAT里面是否允许as many和more在前面有倍数词的情况下等价，我们还是应该继续观望是否会有这样的题目出现的，但是知道有这个文法现象并不是坏事。

balabaladou7

以下是引用aeoluseros在2009-3-6 16:34:00的发言：

个人意见：
More than twice as many tons of corrugated cardboard are recycled each year than (are tons of) newspaper.
是这样的,as many (...) as前面如果有一个倍数短语/词修饰时，就等于more...than，而当前面的倍数词是twice时就习惯于用twice as many (...) as.但是我也没有见过twice as many (...) than.
或许The American Heritage® Book of English Usage认为如果前面有倍数词那么就视as many和more为等价的.
那么原句就可以转为：
(More than) two times more tons of corrugated carboard are recycled each year than newspaper.
这样就可以看出来第一个more than是修饰two times的，即两倍多.
则原句的含义是：
皱纸板回收的吨数是报纸回收吨数的两倍多。
如果去掉第一个more than，意思就是"皱纸板回收的吨数是报纸回收吨数的两倍"。
GMAT里面是否允许as many和more在前面有倍数词的情况下等价，我们还是应该继续观望是否会有这样的题目出现的，但是知道有这个文法现象并不是坏事。

就目前OG上出现的6个例子来讲应该是等价的。继续观望中。。。

aeoluseros

187. In one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, fought at Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, four times as many Americans were killed as would later be killed on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day.
(A) Americans were killed as
(B) Americans were killed than
(C) Americans were killed than those who
(D) more Americans were killed as there
(E) more Americans were killed as those who
Choice A, the best answer, is the only option that accurately expresses the comparison by using the idiomatic form as many... as. In B and C, as many ... than is unidiomatic, and in C and E, those who is a wordy intrusion. In D and E, more is redundant because the phrase four times as many in the original sentence conveys the idea of more.

恩，在GMAT里不能被接受.