OG 13 #9

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OG 13 #9

by hey_thr67 » Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:01 am

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In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

A: less than those of the 1978 harvest.
B: less than the 1978 harvest.
C: less than 1978.
D: fewer than 1978.
E: less than that of India's 1978 harvest.

[spoiler]OA is B. Why not A ?[/spoiler]

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by GMATGuruNY » Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:19 am

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hey_thr67 wrote:In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

A: less than those of the 1978 harvest.
B: less than the 1978 harvest.
C: less than 1978.
D: fewer than 1978.
E: less than that of India's 1978 harvest.

[spoiler]OA is B. Why not A ?[/spoiler]
In E, that seems to refer to production. Thus, that of India's 1978 harvest implies the PRODUCTION of India's HARVEST - an error of redundancy, since the PRODUCTION and the HARVEST are the same thing. Eliminate E.

C and D each seem to compare the rice production to 1978. The PRODUCTION cannot be compared to a YEAR. Eliminate C and D.

In A, those seems to refer to tons, implying that the TONS of the rice production in 1979 are being compared to the TONS of the 1978 harvest. Not the intended meaning. The intention here is to compare the PRODUCTION in one year to the HARVEST in the other. Eliminate A.

The correct answer is B.

Consider the following analogy.
INCORRECT: This year John's salary increased to 50,000 dollars, 25% more than those of his salary last year.
This sentence is nonsense: the intention clearly is not to compare the DOLLARS of one salary to the DOLLARS of the other but rather to compare one SALARY to the other.
Last edited by GMATGuruNY on Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by ankita1709 » Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:50 am

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hey_thr67 wrote:In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

A: less than those of the 1978 harvest.
B: less than the 1978 harvest.
C: less than 1978.
D: fewer than 1978.
E: less than that of India's 1978 harvest.

[spoiler]OA is B. Why not A ?[/spoiler]
Mitch, if B was
B: less than that of 1978. Is this correct.
I suppose this is. :)
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by tanviet » Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:37 am

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B compare "rice production" with " havest" . This is ok

E compare "rice production in 79" to "rice production in 78". This is ok . Why E is redundant? please, help, thank you.

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by tanviet » Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:44 am

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B comapre " rice production " with "havest" . This is ok.

E compare " rice production in 79" with " rice production in 78" is is ok. Why E is redundant? pls, help.

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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:19 am

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duongthang wrote:B comapre " rice production " with "havest" . This is ok.

E compare " rice production in 79" with " rice production in 78" is is ok. Why E is redundant? pls, help.
Please revisit my earlier post, in which I've fleshed out the reasoning.
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by richachampion » Sat Aug 06, 2016 4:27 pm

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In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

A: less than those of the 1978 harvest.
Guys, "those of" here refers to the tons. Let us Re-write the Options.
A: less than tons of the 1978 harvest. This option doesn't convey proper meaning, and also less is wrong here. It should be fewer.

Guys as you asked if we changed "those" to "that" - Then the option will look like -
A: less than that of the 1978 harvest.

This creates ambiguity -
Unlike "those of", "that of" can refer to both singular and plural entities.
"that of" would create an ambiguity whether it is tons or production that it is referring to.

Option E makes a little improvement by changing less to fewer, but then again it creates ambiguity by introducing "that of". Apart from this option also is quite wordy and indirect.

Does this all make sense Belisa?

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by AbdurRakib » Tue Aug 09, 2016 3:25 am

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richachampion wrote:In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

A: less than those of the 1978 harvest.
Guys, "those of" here refers to the tons. Let us Re-write the Options.
A: less than tons of the 1978 harvest. This option doesn't convey proper meaning, and also less is wrong here. It should be fewer.

Guys as you asked if we changed "those" to "that" - Then the option will look like -
A: less than that of the 1978 harvest.

This creates ambiguity -
Unlike "those of", "that of" can refer to both singular and plural entities.
"that of" would create an ambiguity whether it is tons or production that it is referring to.

Option E makes a little improvement by changing less to fewer, but then again it creates ambiguity by introducing "that of". Apart from this option also is quite wordy and indirect.

Does this all make sense Belisa?
"Unlike "those of", "that of" can refer to both singular and plural entities."

May I get pair of example sentences about your undersiang above.

Thanks
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by richachampion » Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:45 am

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AbdurRakib wrote:
richachampion wrote:In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

A: less than those of the 1978 harvest.
Guys, "those of" here refers to the tons. Let us Re-write the Options.
A: less than tons of the 1978 harvest. This option doesn't convey proper meaning, and also less is wrong here. It should be fewer.

Guys as you asked if we changed "those" to "that" - Then the option will look like -
A: less than that of the 1978 harvest.

This creates ambiguity -
Unlike "those of", "that of" can refer to both singular and plural entities.
"that of" would create an ambiguity whether it is tons or production that it is referring to.

Option E makes a little improvement by changing less to fewer, but then again it creates ambiguity by introducing "that of". Apart from this option also is quite wordy and indirect.

Does this all make sense Belisa?
"Unlike "those of", "that of" can refer to both singular and plural entities."

May I get pair of example sentences about your undersiang above.

Thanks
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by richachampion » Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:46 am

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by GMATGuruNY » Wed Aug 10, 2016 4:25 am

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richachampion wrote: Unlike "those of", "that of" can refer to both singular and plural entities.
Not true.
that of must serve to refer to a SINGULAR antecedent.
those of must serve to refer to a PLURAL antecedent.
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by richachampion » Wed Aug 10, 2016 4:34 am

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GMATGuruNY wrote:
richachampion wrote: Unlike "those of", "that of" can refer to both singular and plural entities.
Not true.
that of must serve to refer to a SINGULAR antecedent.
those of must serve to refer to a PLURAL antecedent.
Thank You Mr. Hunt,

But there are 2-3 Official question in which that of is referring back to Plural. I do not have those problems handy with me, But I have bookmarked this thread as soon as I get a hold of them I will post those problems here.
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by joealam1 » Tue Sep 06, 2016 6:37 am

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Hey Guys,

I have doubts on the "less/fewer than" split.

"nearly 25 percent" can it refer to 41 millions tons in another sentence??

Let's consider that E) was : fewer than the 1978 harvest

then could it have been the right answer??

Thanks.

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by SnigdhaD » Sun Nov 11, 2018 8:44 pm

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Understanding the sentence and a little bit of prethinking would help you to solve this problem at ease. First understand the sentence-

In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

Hence, the rice production was reduced to 41 millions and then it is compared to that (rice production) of 1978.

And then review the answer choices

A) less than those of the 1978 harvest.
Rice production is a singular word hence those will not be applicable

B) less than the 1978 harvest.
Correctly compares production=harvest

C) less than 1978.
Wrongly compares the production with the year 1978 and not with the harvest of 1978.

D) fewer than 1978.
Again a wrong comparison

E) less than that of India's 1978 harvest.
It first mentiones that(=harvest or production) and the again mentions about the harvest, hence, it is a redundancy error.

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by [email protected] » Thu Feb 21, 2019 3:43 pm

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Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, to get to the correct answer quickly! Before we dive in, here is the original question, with any differences between each option highlighted in orange:

In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.

(A) less than those of the 1978 harvest
(B) less than the 1978 harvest
(C) less than 1978
(D) fewer than 1978
(E) fewer than that of India's 1978 harvest

After a quick glance over each option, two major issues stand out:

1. less vs. fewer
2. parallel comparisons (1978 harvest/1978/that of India's 1978 harvest)


Since #1 on our list will rule out 2 or 3 answers right away, let's start there. Here is the general rule for less vs. fewer:

LESS = non-countable things; singular mass nouns (less patience, less of a percentage, less water, less grass)
FEWER = countable things (fewer books, fewer blades of grass, fewer dogs)

So which one do we choose? So what is shrinking by 25%? The rice production. Since rice production isn't a countable thing, we must use LESS. Let's see how each option stacks up:

(A) less than those of the 1978 harvest
(B) less than the 1978 harvest
(C) less than 1978
(D) fewer than 1978
(E) fewer than that of India's 1978 harvest

We can eliminate options D & E because they use the wrong comparison "fewer."

Now that we only have 3 options to choose from, let's tackle #2 on our list: parallel comparisons. First, we need to determine what two things are being compared in the sentence, so we can make sure they are parallel in wording, structure, or type. After reading it over, we can easily see that these two things are being compared:

The 1978 rice harvest vs. The 1979 rice harvest

Let's look at each remaining option carefully to make sure they are actually comparing harvest to harvest:

(A) less than those of the 1978 harvest

This is INCORRECT because it's comparing the 1979 harvest to "those of" the 1978 harvest. It's not clear what "those of" is referring to - lack of rain? Rice production? It's not a parallel comparison, so it's wrong.

(B) less than the 1978 harvest

This is CORRECT! It compares the 1979 harvest to the 1978 harvest, and it's very clear that's the case!

(C) less than 1978

This is INCORRECT because it's comparing the harvest of 1979 to the year 1978. We're not comparing harvests to years - that's not parallel! Therefore, this cannot be the correct choice.


There you have it! Option B is the correct choice because it uses the correct comparison language (less) and creates a parallel comparison!


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