Sentence Correction (SC) | Re: According to a recent poll, owning and living in a freestanding house

Dear Experts,

I understand that Like is used to compare Noun to Noun and As is used to compare clause to clause or Action to Action. However, how we actually know whether the question want to compare Noun or Action? For example, in this question, owing and living.... is still a goal of a majority of young adults. then owing and living = goal of young adults. goal of earlier generations is the same as goal of young adults. Then, why is Option A : like that of earlier generationswrong?