Arthur Miller’s plays tend to discuss more serious subjects than Neil Simon.
Compared to his contemporaries, Picasso’s art demonstrates the cubist ideals more effectively.
Ben and Jerry’s rocky road ice cream is infinitely better than Haagen-Dazs.
Can you spot the faulty comparison’s in the above three sentences? If you can’t, don’t worry, you’ll be a pro at them in no time. The trick to recognizing faulty comparisons is identifying the subject and knowing what is being compared. The rule to then apply is that you must always compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, meaning that you need to compare like objects. In the first sentence, Arthur Miller’s plays are the subject – note, the plays and not Arthur Miller – but it is being compared to Neil Simon. The sentence is faulty because plays are being compared to a person.
The correct sentence should read:
Arthur Miller’s plays tend to discuss more serious subjects than Neil Simon’s.
or Arthur Miller’s plays tend to discuss more serious subjects that Neil Simon’s plays.
Note the difference an apostrophe makes. By saying “Neil Simon’s”, it implies it is talking about Neil Simon’s plays, not Neil Simon himself.
The second and third sentences demonstrate the same problem. Can art be more effective than the painter’s contemporaries and can ice cream be better than a store? Clearly not, and the corrected sentences ought to read
Compared to his contemporaries’ work, Picasso’s art demonstrates the cubist ideals more effectively.
Ben and Jerry’s rock road ice cream is infinitely better than Haagen-Dazs’.
As long as you can identify what is being compared, you should have no trouble recognizing this mistake. However, the SAT writers can make it tricky for you with statements such as this:
The weather in San Diego is nicer and sunnier than the weather any city in California.
This sentence might appear to be correct: the weather in San Diego is being compared to the weather in Californian cities. However, there is a slight paradox. The sentence states “any city in California” and “any city” also includes San Diego. The sentence is thus comparing the weather in San Diego and the weather in all Californian cities, but San Diego’s weather cannot be better than itself, right? So to be perfectly correct, the sentence should read
The weather in San Diego is nice and sunnier than the weather in any other city in California.
The last type of faulty comparison involves superlatives and comparatives. Superlatives are words like most, best, fastest, strongest that compare 3 or more things. The corresponding comparatives, more, better, faster, stronger are used when comparing 2 things only.
For example, Between Jackie and Michelle, Jackie is the strongest swimmer is wrong because the sentence is only comparing the swimming capabilities of two girls. It should read, “Jackie is the stronger swimmer”
This type of comparison is usually easier to pick out than recognizing the unlike items are being compared. One comparative-superlative pair that you might not know is “between” and “among”. Between is always used to compare two objects, while among indicates that there are three objects or more. For example, between taking a SAT prep class or studying on Grockit, I find Grockit more effective. Whereas, Among the myriad of SAT prep courses available, Grockit is by far the best.
Comparison rules are not hard to bear in mind, but to make sure the lesson sticks, try a custom Grockit game and practice some problems for yourself!
photo credit: Mike Johnson – TheBusyBrain.com
