<p>In 2005, online shoppers in the United States
charged more money to their credit cards than
2004.
(A) than
(B) than online shoppers for
(C) than in
(D) than would online shoppers in
(E) than they did in</p>
<p>Why is it E and not C? I don't see the ambiguity here.</p>
<p>(That was ALMOST a perfect writing mc. fml)</p>
<p>It’s less wordy, that’s why.</p>
<p>^False</p>
<p>It’s because there has to be a correlating clause. You are comparing the online shopper’s shopping habits in 2005 with his/her shopping habits in 2004, not the online shopper’s shopping habits in 2005 with “in 2004”.</p>
<p>It is less wordy but that’s not why.</p>
<p>Than is a word used to compare (bigger than you, older than you, etc).</p>
<p>The comparson has to make sense, you can’t compare online shoppers to the year 2004.</p>
<p>You’re comparing ‘online shoppers’ with the year 2004.</p>
<p>@TRUFFLIEPUFF - It’s more wordy, not less wordy. E is correct according to the answer key.</p>
<p>@bikeon45, ApTester- Choice C says “than in 2004”, not “than 2004”. It’s obvious the original needs correction, but I was split between C and E.</p>
<p>@billabongboy9828 - The way you worded it obviously sounds incorrect, because you switched the clause entirely. Here’s a similar example: “I put more sand in the backyard than in the kitchen”.</p>
<p>^Nothing was switched. And I hope your example is an example of a grammatically incorrect sentence.</p>
<p>Oh lulz I misread it as “C instead of E” </p>
<p>It’s because of parallelism.</p>
<p>How the Devil did you miss such a simple question when you almost achieved a perfect writing m.c. score?</p>
<p>^This question certainly isn’t simple. It’s a question that tests correct comparisons (definitely not a no-brainer) with a pretty tricky wrong answer thrown in.</p>