In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 milli

This is one of my least-favorite GMAT comparison questions ever… and that’s why we covered it on YouTube, in our 2nd webinar on comparisons. (Part I of that webinar can be found here.)


The thing that jumps out at me here is the word “those.” It’s a plural pronoun, and the only reasonable plural referent is “tons.” So we’d have “…lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than the tons of the 1978 harvest."

Wait.. what? “The tons of the 1978 harvest”?? That makes no sense. The tons of rice ARE the harvest, so why the heck would we ever say “the tons of the harvest”?

So (A) is out.


I’ll be honest: I don’t totally love this one, but I also can’t figure out why it’s definitely wrong. (And you’re always looking for answer choices that contain DEFINITE errors; see our beginner’s guide to SC for more on that.)

Here’s the heart of the comparison in (B): “…lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than the 1978 harvest.” This directly compares 41 million tons – which is exactly the same thing as the 1979 harvest – to the 1978 harvest. Fair enough, I guess. I suppose this would “feel” more obviously correct if the phrase compared “the 1979 harvest” directly to “the 1978 harvest”, but there’s nothing wrong with (B) in its current form. We’re still logically comparing an entire harvest (“41 million tons”) to another entire harvest.

I guess we can keep (B).


This one is very definitely wrong. It’s saying that the 1979 rice production of 41 million tons is less than the year 1978. We can’t logically compare the tons of rice to a year. (C) is out.


(D) has exactly the same problem as (C). The distinction between “less” and “fewer” means nothing to us here, since the comparison is completely illogical. So (D) is gone, too.


The pronoun “that” jumps out at me again here. It’s a singular pronoun, so it must refer to… “rice production”, I guess? But that makes no sense, since we’d have “fewer than the rice production of India’s 1978 harvest.” Huh? The “production of the harvest”? That’s nonsense: the harvest IS the production.

So (E) is out. (B) isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we can do.

Hello Saumya2403,

I will be glad to help you out with this one.

There are the following two errors in Choice E:

1. Using fewer to refer to rice production is incorrect. Less should be used to refer to quantities.

2. Since the pronoun that refers back to India’s rice production, use of India’s is redundant here.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

His = Jose
It = room

It DOES NOT refer to Jose's room but Room only.

THAT = Rice production only

THAT DOES NOT EQUAL == India's Rice Production

Hi egmat - not sure I agree on the yellow.

In (E) -- the pronoun THAT only refers to Rice production. The pronoun THAT DOES NOT refer to India's rice production.

Simple example -

#1) Jose’s room is very neat. His mother shows it off to all the guests.


#2) India's rice production is lower than THAT of Brazil

Well, I agree that "that" refers to "rice production". Choice E is erroneous for using two possessives - that of India's 1978 harvest". Use of the "that of" is incorrect because replacing it with "rice production" will make the choice illogical.

Now, in the "Jose's room" example sentence, the pronoun "it" does refer to "Jose's room". Why? Because a pronoun is a replacement for a noun used earlier in the sentence. The pronoun refers to the same noun as a replacement. So, "it" takes the modifiers connected with "room" and stands for "Jose's room". You can try the following official sentence to see this usage: https://gmatclub.com/forum/avalanches-at-rogers-pass-in-glacier-national-park-killed-more-than-305826.html


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

This is one of my least-favorite GMAT comparison questions ever… and that’s why we covered it on YouTube, in our 2nd webinar on comparisons. (Part I of that webinar can be found here.)


The thing that jumps out at me here is the word “those.” It’s a plural pronoun, and the only reasonable plural referent is “tons.” So we’d have “…lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than the tons of the 1978 harvest."

Wait.. what? “The tons of the 1978 harvest”?? That makes no sense. The tons of rice ARE the harvest, so why the heck would we ever say “the tons of the harvest”?

So (A) is out.


I’ll be honest: I don’t totally love this one, but I also can’t figure out why it’s definitely wrong. (And you’re always looking for answer choices that contain DEFINITE errors; see our beginner’s guide to SC for more on that.)

Here’s the heart of the comparison in (B): “…lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than the 1978 harvest.” This directly compares 41 million tons – which is exactly the same thing as the 1979 harvest – to the 1978 harvest. Fair enough, I guess. I suppose this would “feel” more obviously correct if the phrase compared “the 1979 harvest” directly to “the 1978 harvest”, but there’s nothing wrong with (B) in its current form. We’re still logically comparing an entire harvest (“41 million tons”) to another entire harvest.

I guess we can keep (B).


This one is very definitely wrong. It’s saying that the 1979 rice production of 41 million tons is less than the year 1978. We can’t logically compare the tons of rice to a year. (C) is out.


(D) has exactly the same problem as (C). The distinction between “less” and “fewer” means nothing to us here, since the comparison is completely illogical. So (D) is gone, too.


The pronoun “that” jumps out at me again here. It’s a singular pronoun, so it must refer to… “rice production”, I guess? But that makes no sense, since we’d have “fewer than the rice production of India’s 1978 harvest.” Huh? The “production of the harvest”? That’s nonsense: the harvest IS the production.

So (E) is out. (B) isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we can do.

Hi GMATNinja

I am having hard time choosing (B) over (C). Below is my understanding(may be pretty stupid). kindly address the GAP:

(B) less than the 1978 harvest

we are comparing 1979-rice production with 1978-harvest. Comparison should be between Rice to Rice, no?

harvest may have several other elements.

(E) fewer than that of India's 1978 harvest

here ''that'' seems to refer to rice production.

Comparison elements: Rice production-1979 || Rice production out of 1978- total harvest.

So the comparison seems okay.

Also in (E), to me, ''fewer'' sounds okay.

Thanks

Ashutosh