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Killer white Shark

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Killer white Shark

by tallynik » Fri Nov 14, 2008 11:02 pm
Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies—less than those killed by bee stings.
A. movies—less than those
B. movies—fewer than have been
C. movies, which is less than those
D. movies, a number lower than the people
E. movies, fewer than the ones

I chose B.
I am told OA is E, but I am not sure about the veracity of answers in the document.

Please provide explanations as well.
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by scoobydooby » Fri Nov 14, 2008 11:20 pm
E
countable nouns: use few/fewer, uncountable nouns use less/lesser

A. movies—less than those. (people countable, less is wrong)

B. movies—fewer than have been. (fewer than what?. fewer than have been is wrong)

C. movies, which is less than those. (less is wrongly used)

D. movies, a number lower than the people (seems to compare nmber to people)

E. movies, fewer than the ones (correct- fewer than the ones, ones here refer back to people)
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by karmayogi » Fri Nov 14, 2008 11:32 pm
To me, none of them are correct. Even in case of E, I am not sure whether 'fewer' is used to compare with 'the number of people', sharks or movies.

Could someone explain?
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by sudipto » Fri Nov 14, 2008 11:57 pm
source please ?
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by scoobydooby » Sat Nov 15, 2008 12:00 am
karmayogi wrote:To me, none of them are correct. Even in case of E, I am not sure whether 'fewer' is used to compare with 'the number of people', sharks or movies.

Could someone explain?
fewer is used to compare the number of people killed by sharks to the number of people killed by bee stings. we are comparing the number of people killed
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by iamcste » Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:49 am
scoobydooby wrote:E
countable nouns: use few/fewer, uncountable nouns use less/lesser

A. movies—less than those. (people countable, less is wrong)

B. movies—fewer than have been. (fewer than what?. fewer than have been is wrong)

C. movies, which is less than those. (less is wrongly used)

which incorrectly modifies "movies" instead of no of people killed by sharks....Misplaced modifer
D. movies, a number lower than the people (seems to compare nmber to people)

E. movies, fewer than the ones (correct- fewer than the ones, ones here refer back to people)
fewer than those would be more apt...but this is also ok
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by tallynik » Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:12 am
scoobydooby wrote:E
countable nouns: use few/fewer, uncountable nouns use less/lesser

A. movies—less than those. (people countable, less is wrong)

B. movies—fewer than have been. (fewer than what?. fewer than have been is wrong)

C. movies, which is less than those. (less is wrongly used)

D. movies, a number lower than the people (seems to compare nmber to people)

E. movies, fewer than the ones (correct- fewer than the ones, ones here refer back to people)
With respect to B......
In the first half of sentence it says only 7 have been killed by sharks and in answer choice B, fewer than have been killed by Bee stings.
Tense is matching and it is parallel. Few'er' is compartitive and comparison is between between killed by sharks and "those" killed by bee stings.

With respect to E....
Please note I used "those" in my explanation above because in that sentence formation it made sense to me where as in orginial sentence
"ones" is referring to people(Collective noun). To me this sounds unidiomatic, had it been "those" it would have been fine.

The source for this question is Set #7.
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