It is comparing the rising of costs in both the years and not the costs themselves. So A is right. Correct me if i am wrong

zaarathelab wrote:Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in September, slightly less than they did in the
year that ended in the previous quarter.

(A) less than they did
(B) less than it did
(C) less than they were
(D) lower than
(E) lower than they were

[spoiler]Isn't Employment costs countable? I chose D. OA IS A[/spoiler]

less : it can act as an adjective ( noun modifier), adverb( verb modifier ) and as a noun
lower : always act as an adjective

Not let apply this rule into this problem :

In this sentence "slightly less ( adv + adv)" is acting as an adverb modifying : "they did", which stands for "Employment costs rose .........."
In D, since "lower" is an adjective it wont serve the purpose - to modify a action - here we need an adverb not an adjective.
D would look like this :
Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in September, slightly(adv) lower(adj) than in the year that ended in the previous quarter.
I hope you got why D is wrong.


I hope this helps.

Can you please tell me the source of this problem. It seems to be a OG problem but I havent came across this problem in OG-12 and verbal review. Is it from OG-11 or OG-10 ?