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

GMATNinja DmitryFarber GMATNinjaTwo VeritasKarishma -- i picked option C because i thought perhaps ellipsis is going on with option C ?

Option C) less than (THAT OF) 1978

The antecedent of "THAT" would be Rice production (Rice production is singular)

That's why i chose C

Thoughts on where I am wrong ?

You need to compare production in 1979 (41 mn tonnes) to production in 1978.

Option (C) compares production in 1979 to 1978 which doesn't make sense.

Something like this will work:
"In 1979 ... 41 mn tonnes, nearly 25% less than (that in) 1978"
"That" here takes the place of "India's rice production".

Option (B) correctly states:
"In 1979 ... 41 mn tonnes, nearly 25 percent less than the 1978 harvest.

Here "the 1978 harvest" would stand for "around 55 mn tonnes".

No, size makes no difference. We always use "fewer" for countable and "less" for uncountable. Here, we use "less" rather than "fewer" because we are comparing the overall size of production, rather than the specific number of tons. This generally happens with weights and measures. For instance, I would say "I weigh less than 200 pounds," not fewer, because I am talking about a measurement, not a group of things. I'd also say "I want less than 3 ounces of coffee" or "I have less than 5 feet of rope left." Sure, we can count pounds, ounces, and feet, but we are using them to talk about an amount, not a number. 3 ounces of coffee is a way of saying how much coffee you have, but we're not counting individual coffee beans. Similarly, in the original problem, we're not counting individual grains of rice; rather, we're measuring overall rice production.