Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in Septe

I'm curious about this question. Isn't less only used when the quantity cannot be counted? In this case, we are given a concrete number - 2.8. Shouldn't that mean that less cannot be used

Numbers such as: population, cost, premium,area, interest rate, percent, we use "greater" and "less" for such numbers

Dear AnthonyRitz VeritasPrepBrian VeritasPrepHailey GMATGuruNY DmitryFarber MartyTargetTestPrep AjiteshArun GMATRockstar EducationAisle GMATNinja IanStewart,



Why is choice D. wrong?
Why can't "lower than" modify the number "2.8%" appeared earlier in the sentence?

OA: Employment costs ROSE...less than they DID in the year that ended.
Here, less is an adverb modifying rose.
HOW did costs rise?
They rose LESS THAN THEY DID IN THE YEAR THAT ENDED.
In D, lower is an adjective and thus cannot serve to modify rose.
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Dear GMATGuruNY AnthonyRitz VeritasPrepBrian VeritasPrepHailey DmitryFarber MartyTargetTestPrep AjiteshArun GMATRockstar EducationAisle GMATNinja IanStewart,

Since "lower" is an adjective, "lower" can validly modify "2.8%," which is a noun (IMO, a number is a noun), right?

I mean why couldn't we view choice D. as below:

Employment costs rose 2.8 percent in the 12 months that ended in September, slightly lower than [the percent] in the year that ended in the previous quarter.

Here, 2.8 percent is functioning not as a noun but as an ADVERB.
Question: HOW did costs rise?
Answer: They rose 2.8 PERCENT.
Since 2.8 percent is functioning as an adverb, it cannot be modified by an adjective such as lower.
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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 Correct answer - no apparent errors.

B. less than it did Incorrect usage of singular "it" to refer to plural "costs". Eliminate.

C. less than they were "were" refers to a state of being, whereas this sentence talks about a state of change, "rose". Incorrect comparison. Eliminate.

D. lower than Incorrect comparison and parallelism - verb "rose" is being compared to something "in the year...", what that something is is not mentioned at all. Eliminate.

E. lower than they were Same error as in (C). Eliminate.

Hope this helps.
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Hi avigutman - i was wondering if my take-away is accurate regarding the difference between lower vs less

I gained 10 pounds this year, lower than last year
-- Lower is modifying 10 pounds specifically.
-- implies : I gained 10 pounds this year. Last year, I gained maybe 9 pounds or 2 pounds or 5 pounds only or zero pounds (lower than 10 pounds)


I gained 10 pounds this year, less than last year
-- Less is modifying "gaining"
-- implies : This year I may have gained 100 pounds. Last Year I did gain only 90 pounds. This way, it is modying "how much I gained"

jabhatta2 your first example doesn't make any sense to me. "lower than 10 pounds" is never correct, in my opinion. Perhaps you meant to use "fewer" rather than "lower"?

So, I gained 10 pounds this year, fewer than last year

This would have the same meaning as your second example. With "fewer" you're modifying the number of pounds gained, and with "less" you're modifying the amount of weight gained. The meaning is the same, we're talking about the gain either way.

In your second example, you are saying that the amount of weight you gained this year was less than the amount of weight you gained last year. So the implication is that last year you gained more than 10 pounds.

Hi avigutman - other than the difference between less & lower [ i am completely confused on the nuanced difference between the two regarding when to use what if its acting as a noun modifer vs acting as an adverb vs comparative of Low.... I just cant follow as there is too many varying posts]

is there any other way to eliminate D in your view ? Here is my attempt

Option D analogy) Costs rose 2.8 % in 2021, lower than in 2016

Given there is no clause in the 2nd half of option D -- the comparison in option D becomes between two time periods [But maybe ellipsis gaurantees the subject-verb (Costs Rose) crosses over so not sure about this attempt]

jabhatta2
Here's a good response I found on urch.com regarding lower vs less vs fewer:
for percents and fractions we use less not lower or fewer.
for time ,distance, money we use 'less'
for countable entities we use fewer
eg:fewer chocolates
less than $541
less than 3 weeks
less than 3 kms
higher and lower we use for physical entities
The height of the chair is lower than that of the table.

Regarding your query about the need to repeat the clause "they did":
Sentence Correction is about picking the best answer choice among the choices that are available. I don't think I've ever been in a situation that offered identical answer choices with the only difference being the presence or absence of a clause repetition. If answer choice A didn't exist, yes, I would pick your version of D (with "less than").

can 'lower' be also used in option A]

No. "Lower" is an adjective, so it can only describe nouns.

The modifier in question, though, is adverbial—i.e., it describes the action of a clause. (In the one-year period from last September to this September, employment costs ROSE slightly LESS than they did (= rose) in the one-year period from last June to this June.) "Lower" can't do that.

Hi RonTargetTestPrep GMATGuruNY -a bit unfair but i was looking at this old manhattan post

Manhattan forum

Per the post -- The word "lower" can be used for mathematical quantities

^^RonTargetTestPrep GMATGuruNY

With the above undersatnding - in this SC sentence - we are comparing numbers here

The goal is to compare :

Year 1 - 2.8 %
vs
Year 2 - 3 % (i just made up 3 % -- it can be any percentage above 2.8 % really)

I thought the goal was to compare 2.8 % vs 3 %

Those mathematical quantities are all nouns, so there's no contradiction with the prior post.

What you CAN'T do is use "lower" (in the quantitative sense) as an adverbial modifier—i.e., to modify an ACTION / WHOLE CLAUSE.

Hi RonTargetTestPrep - why do you say the above ?

In these simple sentence - "lower" (in the quantitative sense) is used as an adverbial modifer to modify verbs



In both my simple examples - "lower" is adverbial. "Lower" is modifying the verbs (is setting | is ranked)

^^RonTargetTestPrep

When it comes to (d) specifically -

The modifier in option D - "lower than they did in the year that ended in the previous quarter." is an adverbial modifier.

I agree that this modifier in blue is not modifying a verb.

This adverbial modifier is instead another adverb (that other adverb is 2.8 %)

adverbs dont only have to modify verbs or actions.
adverbs can modify other adverbs per my understanding

In option D - "lower than they did in the year that ended in the previous quarter." is modifying another adverb (2.8 %)

Thoughts ?

Could somebody please tell, what type of modifier is "slightly less than.....quarter"