Although X is more successful than Y, Z is the ___ successful
Is this a double possibility sentence? Could both “most” and “least” work in this case?
Note that this isn’t a official sentence. I am just trying to improve my logical abilities
It’s very close to being a double possibility, but I wouldn’t consider it one primarily because of the use of the word “although”.
“Although” hints that the blank will contrast somehow with the idea of X being more successful than Y, and given the preference to build on an existing example (rather than contradict it), we can assume Z is the most successful.
Without the “although”, the same preference to scale up toward greater success is still there, but it’s not as strong.
Technically, you could fill in Z as being the least successful, but it would feel weird because it violates the expectation to build on what has already been established. Don’t expect such a violation to occur during the GRE, if they set a question up this way, it’s because they want you to do the logical thing and scale up the comparison.
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