Question

Simplify the underlined part of the given sentence (if necessary):
A long-term study of some 1,000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank, the more they had a likelihood of coronary disease.

• A. more they had alikelihood of coronary disease
• B. more was their likelihood of having coronary disease
• C. more they would have alikelihood to have coronary disease
• D. greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease
• E. greater was coronary disease likely

Answer 1

The correct option is D greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease

In the given sentence, the underlined part is clearly difficult to understand. So, there is a definite need to simplify it. The sentence talks about 'the likelihood' of physicians who drank coffee, to develop coronary disease. This gives us an indication that it is an uncountable noun and so we cannot use the word 'more' to show an increase of it. The correct comparative word to use in case of uncountable nouns is 'greater' whereas, 'more' is used with countable nouns like money, land etc.

Therefore, options A, B and C are incorrect. Option E is not a complete sentence and therefore is also incorrect. The correct answer is option D.

The simplified sentence is: A long-term study of some 1000 physicians indicates that the more coffee these doctors drank, the greater was their likelihood of having coronary disease.