In my opinion, life in the twenty-first century is much easier than ___________.
A. that used to be B. it is used to C. it was used to D. it used to be
The suggested answer is D. I don’t know why A is not right? what’s the differences between that and it? thank you.
D is correct as the suggested answer indicates.
life’ matches with the pronoun ‘it’, not ‘that’.
thank you. can’t that refer to life?
It can, as in ‘That’s life’, but in this sentence we need an equivalent to the third person singular.
“Life in the 21st century is easier than life (it) was in the past.”
Life in the 21st Century is easy. In the past, life (it) was harder."
But I saw sentences like this:
The weather of Beijing is warmer than that of Tokyo.
The water in the cup is hotter than that in the pot.
And what about:
The life in the country is harder than that in cities. (that=it ?)
They aren’t the same structure. ‘That’ is not followed by a verb in any of them.
You need a 1st/2nd/3rd person pronoun before the verb ‘used to be’ here. There is no subject pronoun for the verb otherwise.
But can’t “that” be used as a pron referring to someting above mentioned?
I mean why "that " can’t be used as a pron referring to “life” in the sentence?
Because you are talking about the same life. The other sentences are comparisons within the present. The original sentence is a comparison between the present and the past.
what about this:
Life in the twenty-first century is much easier than that in the past.
Is this correct?
Hi,
You have to make a distinction between a comparison of actions (states) and a comparison of nouns. Look at this:
He will get much better exam results than his brother got. Here the comparison is between two ‘actions’ (will get and got) The two subjects - ‘he’ and ‘his brother’ both are followed by a verb.
In this sentence the comparison is between nouns:
He got a better result than that of his brother. In this sentence we are looking at the result of one brother in comparison with that of the other. Instead of repeating the noun ‘result’ we use the demonstrative pronoun ‘that’ and not a personal pronoun because there is no verb (action) involved.
Alan
Instead of saying : “Life in the twenty-first century is much easier than it used to be.”
can I say: “Life in the twenty-first century is much easier than it is/was used to be.”?
Please comment
No, you can’t. “Used to” (‘used’ here is a lexical verb) is quite different from “be used to” (‘used’ here is an adjective), both in structure and in meaning. More details on the difference can be found at bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learn … tv93.shtml
The life at present and the life in the past are the same life?
hi,nice to see you again.
So what’s the comparison in the original sentence:
comparison between nouns or actions?
you and Beeesneees think “it” is right just because there is verb (action) involved and if there is no verb involed we should choose “that” . I wonder why can’t “that” be followed with verb in the sentence?
Mr.Beeesneees,
Life in the 21st century is easier than that in the past.
Life in the 21st century is easier than it was in the past.
His exam result is better than that of his brother.
Are those sentences OK?
yes.