HOT Competition 3 Sep/8PM: He worked as an analyst for as little as

Veritas Prep Explanation

The correct answer is C.

Only this answer manages to both logically align the tenses of the sentence (“had worked… by the time he received”) and properly parallel the elements of the “less than/fewer than” structure in the middle of the sentence.

Answer A uses the simple past “worked” incorrectly relative to the past perfect “had received.” The past perfect (“had received”) describes an event that occurred in the past before another past tense event (“worked”), so these tenses indicate that “he had received” a promotion before “he worked as an analyst.” Yet the sentence also describes that the work took place “by the time” the promotion happened. This is contradictory and illogical. Furthermore, A butchers the “as little as, if not less, than” structure. Removing the “if not less” modifier leaves “as little as… than,” which simply makes no sense at all.

Answer B correctly sequences the tenses but butchers the comparison elements. “as few, if not fewer than, two” becomes “as few… two” when the modifier is removed; this is not the proper usage of “few.” Furthermore, saying that “his work” had been as few as a time – “two and a half years” – sets up a comparison between work and time that is wholly nonsensical.

Answer D is again problematic in terms of tenses. “has worked” is present perfect and suggests either an event at an indefinite time in the past or else, more commonly, an event from the past that is ongoing into the present. Neither of these works logically with the phrase “by the time,” which indicates that the “has worked” concluded, fully in the past, at quite a specific and definite point. “has received” only compounds this problem.

Answer E commits a tense error when it uses the simple past “worked” with the simple past “was received” – this is problematic because the work in question occurred before the promotion, and without explicit time order words (absent in this case) the past perfect “had worked” would be required to clarify the sequence of events. This answer also repeats the illogical comparison of B: it nonsensically suggests that “his work” was as few as a time – “two and a half years.”

It is worth noting that the “less than” versus “fewer than” split is a False Decision Point in this case – students are strongly advised to avoid making these sorts of decisions if at all possible, and to focus instead of logic and firm rules of grammar.

That said, in case anyone wishes to argue that “fewer than” is required for an enumerated noun phrase like “two and a half years,” consider the New York Times’ position on the matter: “The point is to describe an extent of time, not the number of individual years. So we should say ‘less than [two and a half] years,’ not ‘fewer.’”