Sentence Correction

The Gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970's

A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than
C) extinction, their numbers now five fold what they were
D) extinction, now with five fold numbers they had
E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

OA: A

fiza gupta wrote:The Gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970's

A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than
C) extinction, their numbers now five fold what they were
D) extinction, now with five fold numbers they had
E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

OA: A

Technically,

Greater than 5 times -
X > 5Y
This means X is anything which is greater than 5 times the number "Y"


More than 5 times -
X = Y + 5Y

"their" is wrong so C and D are wrong. More than is also not correct. So B is also out.

Down to A and E.

I believe E has a modification error. Lets some expert Chime in.

Mike McGarry------->

Getting bigger: more vs. greater

When something countable increases, we use "more":
Example: Holland has more tulips than does any other country in Western Europe.
Tulips are distinct and countable: we can count how many tulips we have.

When something uncountable increases, we also use "more":
Example: The US State of Georgia has more land than does the state of Pennsylvania.("Land" is an uncountable noun)
It costs more to go to the ballgame than to go to the opera.(the implicit noun is "money", which is also uncountable (as opposed to units of money, such as dollars, which are countable).

We use "greater" when the noun in question is a number.
We can count the number of tulips, but a tulip itself is not a number. Some examples of nouns that are themselves numbers are: percent, interest rate, population, volume, distance, price, cost, and number.
Example: The area of Georgia is greater than that of Pennsylvania.

Notice, for certain economic quantities, we will use "higher" for an increase. In general, things take "more" but numbers take "greater."

Getting smaller: less vs. fewer

When something uncountable decreases, we use "less":
example: Pennsylvania has less land than does Georgia.

When something countable decreases, we use "fewer":
example: Female drivers tend to get fewer speeding tickets.

when we compare numbers, and numbers decrease, we can simply go back to using "less."
example: The melting point of zinc is less than that of copper.
"melting point" is a temperature, so it is indeed a number.

Though, I correctly answered this, I need a strong reason why E is wrong. Please help!

With regards,
Saswata.

saswata4s wrote:Though, I correctly answered this, I need a strong reason why E is wrong. Please help!

With regards,
Saswata.

The present perfect (has + VERBed) serves to express a PAST ACTION THAT AFFECTS THE PRESENT.
E: The gyrlfalcon has survived, now with numbers
Here, now with numbers is an adverb surviving to modify has survived.
Conveyed meaning:
At some point in the PAST, the gyrfalcon survived NOW.
This meaning is nonsensical.
Eliminate E.