Despite the growing number of people who purchase plane tickets online, airline executives are convinced that, just as one-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers to automatic teller machine, many travelers will still use travel agents

A) growing number of people who purchase plane tickets online, airline executives are convinced that, just as one-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers to automatic teller machines, many travelers will

B) growing number of people who purchase plane tickets online, airline executives are convinced, just as one-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers to automatic teller machines, that many travelers would

C) growing number of people purchasing plane tickets online, airline executives are convinced, just as one-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers as compared to automatic teller machines, many travelers will

D) fact that the number of people purchasing plane tickets online is growing, airline execituves are convinced, just as one-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers as compared to automatic teller machines, that many travelers would

E) fact that the number of people who purchase plane tickets online are growing, airline executives are convinced that, just as obe-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers compared with automatic teller machines, many travelers would

Source GMAT Prep
OA is A.
I picked B. Please explain ?

the easy way to eliminate (b) is to know that "would" is incorrect.

"would" can be used as a past-tense form of "will" -- for instance, i know that we will win translates into the past tense as i knew that we would win -- or to express a hypothetical situation that isn't true. neither of these is the case here; this is a prognostication of future events, so the future tense makes sense and the conditional ("would") doesn't.

the hard way to eliminate (b) is to realize that its construction - the placement of the commas and the word "that" - isn't right.
because of the placement of the commas and "that", this choice mistakenly puts "executives are convinced" in parallel with "1/3 of customers prefer...". that makes no sense.
in (a), though, since "that" precedes the comma, the parallelism is different: "1/3 of customers prefer..." is now parallel to "many travelers will...", as it logically should be.

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

Which is wrong with C?

Is it because it omits "who"? Is that necessary for A to be correct?

Or is it the incorrect idiom "prefer x as compared to y"

or both?

I am not clear on why C is wrong as well

Convinced that is the idiom..that's what i think makes C wrong.

After Despite we need noun or noun phrase
I have seen same construction wrong in some og problem as well "Despite the fact"

there's one simple way to eliminate (c), and that's to notice that "prefer ... compared to" is redundant.
you should just say "prefer ... to", as the word "prefer" already encodes the idea of making a comparison. (for the same reason, "reply back", "free gift", "the reason is because...", etc. are all wrong as well.)

--

here's how to use "compared to/with" properly: (by the way, there is no meaningful difference between "compared to" and "compared with")

if you have a sentence that says "compared to/with" or "as compared to/with", then the sentence CANNOT also say a comparison word, such as more, less, greater, prefer, better, worse, etc.

to use "compared to/with", you just STATE statistics, without using any other comparison word.

examples:
this year's unemployment rate of 12% is three times as great compared to the rate in 1994 --> incorrect (redundant)

the correct way to write it:
this year's unemployment rate is 12%, compared to 4% in 1994
i.e., you just come out and SAY the statistics, and then give "compared to".

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

Thanks Ron!

Could you please kindly elaborate more on despite in this question?

Thanks in advance!

Mandy,
Could you please kindly elaborate on what you are asking Ron to do? :) Ron never discussed the word "despite", nor is it relevant to the outcome of the problem. If you have a specific question, though, we would be happy to help you..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

Ron,
Can you explain why Despite the fact is wrong?
Or is that not wrong just because of that and more so because of the use of "would"

Hi Ron,

Just noticed something in choice A.

Choice A is comparing human tellers to machine. Is it allright to compare Plural to singular. In rest of the choices, human tellers are compared to machines

I know A is the correct answer choice so i am not trying to question the answer but still thought it's an observation for which i should seek claification.

Kapil

1) Prefer does not mark a parallel or comparison.

2) It's perfectly sensible to compare something plural to something singular.

3) In any event, parallelism does not require that parallel elements agree in number.

having said all that...

4) I would expect the OA to use tellers and machines or teller and machine in this sentence, though I would put too much weight on that expectation.

5) There must be a typo here. The relevant part of the sentence is written here as one-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers to automatic teller machine. That should be one-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers to an automatic teller machine, or one-third of bank customers still prefer human tellers to automatic teller machines. I suspect the latter.

That should read I would NOT put too much weight on that expectation.

Kind of an important word, not.

Hello,
Please change the option A to read "machines" instead of machine. Just encountered this question on G prep. The poster has made a typo here.

done, thanks

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes