Comparison antecedents

[DianaG875]

Hey,

I have a question regarding question SC 960 from OG 2022: "Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year..". In answer choice C, how did you deduce that the first comparison refers to years and not to prices?

Thanks,

[dmitryknowsbest]

The phrase "than last year's" would refer to prices, not years. However, the comparison still doesn't make sense. Notice that "this year" is an adverbial modifier, so we should compare using another modifier, not a noun. For instance, we could say "higher this year than last year." We could also compare verbs: "be higher this year than they were last year." But C compares a time (this year) to a thing (last year's prices). If we try to make sense of this, C is saying "This year, prices will be higher than last year's prices will be this year." It doesn't really mean anything.

However, it would be fine to say "this year's prices are higher than last year's."