Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[jasonlulu_2000]

The ecological value of a tree is nine times more than that of chopsticks made from the tree.

The ecological value of a tree is nine times higher than that of chopsticks made from the tree.


Which one is better? Is there another adjective to modify "value"?

thanks

[m_prime]

Well, in a sense neither sentence is actually correct, although both make sense grammatically.

Trees have ecological value, chopsticks have no ecological value (at least none that I can think of). Nine times zero = zero.

As a rough guide, I would say that we use 'more' when we make vague, unquantified comparisions, ex: "The Pacific Ocean is three times more polluted than the Atlantic".

We normally use higher (or lower) when make more accurate comparisions, usually involving numbers and preferably suppported by some sort of data. "At $100 a barrel, the price of oil is four times higher than a year a go".

In some situations either 'higher' or 'more' can be used.

There are a whole number of adjectives that can modify value but most will also change the meaning of the sentence. If you want to keep the same meaning you could say the 'environmental value' instead.

[jasonlulu_2000]

Thank you.