Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white sha

Yeah, (B) and (E) are pretty confusing. I could swear that I'd written a long explanation of this at some point, but I think that was only in my head.

So here's that explanation that was apparently trapped in my head, QOTD-style:


I don't think anybody is tempted by this one. "Those" is a plural pronoun that logically needs to refer back to "people." So then we have "less than the people killed by bee stings" -- and that doesn't work, because "less" is a non-countable modifier, and "people" are definitely countable.

So (A) is out.


This seems fine. It sets up the comparison nicely: "seven people... have been killed by the great white shark", and that's "fewer than have been killed by bee stings." I'm not sure how we could ask for anything more from this one. Sure, you might be tempted to change this to "fewer PEOPLE than have been killed by bee stings", but it's perfectly clear without the word "people", right?

And in case you're wondering: honestly, I wouldn't waste any brain cells worrying about dashes. The world's best editors and grammar/style/usage experts don't fully agree on the correct use of dashes, and the GMAT really doesn't go crazy testing you on those nuances. More on dashes and other punctuation in this video.

Anyway, we can keep (B).


This is also an easy elimination: the phrase beginning with "which" can't logically modify "movies" or even "the man-eater of the movies", and "less than those" is wrong for exactly the same reasons as in answer choice (A). See above for more on that issue.


We beat this answer choice to death in this post, but the short version is that (D) is literally suggesting that the number is physically lower than the people. That doesn't make sense, unless there's a gigantic balloon printed with the number SEVEN on it in huge letters, and the people are skydiving above it. Or something.

So (D) is very much out.


And here's the painfully tempting answer choice. I'm not sure if you'll find this satisfying, but I'll give it a shot.

Think about what the word "ones" means: you would only use it to refer to specific cases, right? Silly example: "I eat hundreds of burritos every year, but I particularly enjoy the ones that are stuffed with avocado and carne asada." "The ones" is NOT a generic pronoun: it refers to a specific subset of burritos. You could translate "the ones" as "the specific burritos" in this case.

Mmm... burritos.

So in (E), "the ones" presumably refers to "the SPECIFIC people." And it's hard to make sense of the resulting sentence: "... fewer than the specific people killed by bee stings." The sentence is clearly trying to compare the NUMBER of people killed by sharks to the NUMBER of people compared by bee stings. And (E) simply does not do that -- it seems to be making a not-very-logical comparison between the number of people killed by sharks and the specific people killed by bee stings.

So (B) is our winner.
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ziyuen, I don't think ambiguity is the problem, since "ones" is plural and the shark is singular. The issue is that whenever you use "the one" or "the ones", you're pointing to a very specific individual or individuals:

I eat dozens of burritos every week, but the ones at Taqueria La Cumbre are the best. --> I'm referring to a specific subset of burritos, not to the antecedent "burritos" in general

In (E), the logic subtly falls apart when we use "the ones." (E) compares the number of people killed by the sharks to the specific people killed by bee stings. (B) clarifies that you're comparing the quantity of people who were killed by each source.

I hope this helps!
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A dash is a mark of separation stronger than a comma, less formal than a colon, and more relaxed than parentheses.
Unlike other forms of punctuation, the dash does not have one specific usage. when you want a phrase or another part of the sentence to have extra emphasis, a dash may be used. Take a look at this sentence:

There are three things every repairman must have: a screwdriver, a hammer, and a saw.

In this sentence, a colon has been used. The writing seems to be formal. In addition, the writing seems to NOT need any extra emphasis.

Look at the following sentence:
The only thing Tony could do—if he could do anything at all—was to sit and wait for the test results to come in the mail.

In this sentence, dashes are used because it seems informal and the clause inside the dashes needs some emphasis. The emphasis is added in order to show that Tony could do nothing in this situation. The writer could have used parentheses, but parentheses may have been too formal for this situation.

Here in the question the author is introducing bees to put more emphasis on his statements against white shark, the man-eater of the movies
so dash should be used here

Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies—less than those killed by bee stings.
A. movies—less than those

Problem one - Less is normally used for uncountable things. People is countable. This kills C as well.
Even while using less than, verb forms should be parallel. Have been killed is not parallel to killed. Kills D and E

B. movies—fewer than have been
Perfect.
C. movies, which is less than those
Less than used again. Verb form not parallel.
D. movies, a number lower than the people
Lower is does not mean less. Lower is more closer to shorter/smaller.
E. movies, fewer than the ones
Verb form error.

B. choosed it under llism.

-have been killed by the great white shark, ..
-movies - fewer than have been killed by bee stings.

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-



Choice A: This answer choice incorrectly uses "less" to modify "people", a countable noun. Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Choice B: This answer choice modifies the countable noun "people" with the correct modifier, "fewer", avoids pronoun ambiguity, and conveys the intended meaning of the sentence. Thus, this answer choice is correct.

Choice C: This answer choice repeats the error found in Option A. Moreover, due to the use of the "comma + which" combination the phrase "which is less than those..." modifies the noun "movies". Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Choice D: This answer choice incorrectly uses "lower" to modify "people", a countable noun. Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Choice E: This answer choice suffers from pronoun ambiguity, regarding the phrase "the ones"; there are two plural nouns that "ones" could refer to, "people" and "movies". Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Collective, Countable, and Uncountable Nouns on GMAT", you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Avoiding Pronoun Ambiguity on GMAT", you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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700slave,

Checked my notes on the hyphen, and I am pasting it for your reference.

Hyphens are used for prefixes like ex-, self-. Hyphens are used in compound numbers like forty-five, and with fractions used as adjectives.
Right: A two-thirds vote was necessary to pass the law
Wrong: Only two-thirds of the students passed the final exam

Hyphens are used with a compound adjective when it comes before the word it modifies, but not after the word it modifies.

Wrong: The arguments continued into the night with no-holds-barred
Right: The no-holds-barred argument continued into the night

Hyphens are also used to emphasize a point being made in the sentence.

------------

Ok!! With regards to the answer choices.

As it is possible to count the number of shark attack victims, fewer is preferable to less. Between B and E, "fewer than (what?) have been" has no clear referrent. fewer than what??

D is more wordy, and E conveys the same meaning using "fewer" words.

Enuf said.

The answer is 'B' - the clue is the number 7. When talking about a definite number, 'fewer' must be used. When talking abstract numbers, 'lesser' is used.

Well, just goes to show you... some of those clowns making GMAT prep materials don't speak proper English.

The answer should be B.

A is wrong because "less" is obviously the improper modifier to use.
C is wrong because the "which is" construction makes it awkward and, again, you have "less."
D is wrong on face.
E is wrong because what "the ones" refers to is vague. You could infer it, of course, but the construction is all effed up.

Honestly, the so-called "rules" for using dashes change all the time, depending on what medium you're communicating in. The "&" symbol is inappropriate almost anywhere, except perhaps in a title (eg. Johnson & Johnson). How and where to use commas is worthy of an entire book of English grammar, and to tell the truth, the vast majority of people misuse them. College-educated folks here in the States write with awful comma splices and usage all the time. Pick up an MLA manual and read about it.

Answer is provided by many guys appropriately. Just trying to explain the difference between usage of fewer and less.

Fewer:
Fewer is used with countable nouns: people, animals, chairs, shoes.

1.You know fewer people than I do.
2.There should be fewer books on the table.
3.I have fewer ideas than everyone else.
4.Fewer of us show up each year.


Less
Less is used for uncountable, usually abstract nouns: money, happiness, snow, idealism.

1.I hope less snow falls this year.
2.We need more money and less debt.
3.I have less computer savvy than you.
4.You should spend less of your time complaining.

Less is also used with adjectives and adverbs:

1.I'm less happy than I used to be.
2.He runs less quickly than you.

Only seven HAVE BEEN KILLED by Animal A- less/fewer than HAVE BEEN by Animal B.

C,D and E are out because "which", "a number", "fewer" touch the movies. By touch rule, these phrases modify the movies. This is incorrect.
Now, we are left with A and B. We need to maintain parallelism and only B uses HAVE BEEN...

Answer: B

There is a verb tense error in E

Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies—less than those killed by bee stings.

B. movies—fewer than have been (killed)
E. movies, fewer than the ones (killed)

The touching rule is used for noun-modifiers and has only few exceptions:
1)parallel structure like
noun, which(touches the noun) .... and which (does not touch the noun, but is in a parallel structure)
2)noun with modifiers or prepositional phrases like
the car of the year (prep phrase) that won the championship(refers to the car even if it touches the noun "year")

At the moment I cannot remember any other case... hope this answers your question!

Hi imhimanshu. I'm glad to help.
Hi gmatter0913. I'd like to confirm OA is E. Please refer to my explanation below.

Some theories:
(1) If A modifier is blocked off by commas, it should be blocked off both sides with the same punctuations.. If you use a comma on the left, you must use a comma on the right. The same pattern is used for a dash (-)
(2) The dash (-) is a flexible punctuation mark. You can use a dash as an emphatic comma, semicolon, or colon.


Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies—less than those killed by bee stings.

A. movies—less than those
Wrong. The left side of the modifier is a comma --> the dash on the right is wrong. In addition, "less" is wrong here.

B. movies—fewer than have been
Wrong. Same error as in A. The left side of the modifier is a comma --> the dash on the right is wrong.

C. movies, which is less than those
Wrong. "which" modifies the movies --> Make no sense --> wrong. In addition, "less" is incorrect.

D. movies, a number lower than the people
Wrong comparison: "a number vs. the people"

E. movies, fewer than the ones
Correct. The comparison is: Only seven people have been killed by white shark fewer than the ones (have been) killed by bee stings.

Same color denotes comparisons in the sentence.

Hope it helps.

Dear imhimanshu,
I am replying to your pm, and I'm happy to give my 2 cents on this question.

I have looked at various websites, and I am astounded how the web seems almost equally divided between people who insist the OA is (B) and people who insist the OA is (E). If this indeed a GMAT Prep, then either GMAT Prep itself showed inconsistencies, or tons of people mistakenly cite a wrong answer as the OA. Something is very fishy here.

I really liked what pqhai had to say about the dash --- a more emphatic break than a comma or semicolon. It can indicate an unexpected shift in the flow of the sentence.
Ted Williams was a Hall-of-Fame baseball player --- and a champion fisherman.
It can also be used for an appositive phrase or other noun modifier, especially if the modifier is long.
Americans consider Washington the "Father of the Country" --- a title that indicates how much he is endeared to Americans.

In the (B) version of the sentence,
Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies—fewer than have been killed by bee stings.
the dash serves to show an unexpected shift in the logic --- folks are deathly afraid of sharks, and the movies (such as "Jaws") have made notorious death by sharks. The unexpected irony is that little old bees have killed more people than gigantic sharks. The dash indicates this unexpected shift. Notice the good verb parallelism ---- "have been killed by X ... have been killed by Y". What pqhai says about this choice doesn't make sense to me --- it's verb parallelism --- what follows the dash is not a modifier.

Here, I would say both (B) & (E) are correct, grammatically and stylistically. We are dealing with the number of something, i.e. something countable, so we absolutely need the word "fewer" instead of "less." Choices (A) & (C) make the countable/uncountable mistake, so they are plain wrong, and (D) is an awkward wordy disaster. Choice (B) make be a tad shorter and more elegant than (E), but it's not really characteristic of the GMAT to have two answers, both of which are essentially correct: they are usually very good about making one clearly right answer and making something clearly flawed about each of the other four answers. Something is very fishy with this question.

Mike
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Dear akijuneja,
I have no idea what passage you might be citing from the idiom ebook, but this is a fundamental Diction issue ---- we use "less" for continuous uncountable items ---
less water, less air, less freedom, less democracy, less justice, less time, less space, less money
and we use "fewer" for countable items:
fewer people, fewer houses, fewer cards, fewer court cases, fewer hours, fewer inches, fewer dollars
See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... -vs-fewer/

This is a very important issue, which the GMAT frequently tests. It's very good to be clear on this.

Mike
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Dear akijuneja,
You must distinguish between three different scenarios
(a) uncountable items
(b) countable items
(c) numbers

There's a difference between, say, a melting point or price of something --- that's a number, as opposed to seven cars or ten newspapers, which are counts of countable items. The rules for countable items is not the same as the rules for numbers. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-sente ... ve-idioms/

Thus, we would talk about
more time vs. less time (uncountable)
more justice vs. less justice (uncountable)
more people vs. fewer people (countable)
more barrels vs. fewer barrels (countable)
a higher melting point vs. a lower melting point (number)
a higher price vs. a lower price (number)
the price of A is greater/higher than the price of B (number)
the price of B is less/lower than the price of A (number)

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Dear Mike,

I can confirm that the OA is indeed B. I have verified it from GMAT PREP,as I encountered this question while taking test.

I'm producing a part of question in which I'm having doubt.

Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies—less than those killed by bee stings.

B. movies—fewer than have been
In option B, I wanted to understand the construction of the sentence. Can we say that the blue colored part is Clause.? if yes, then what is the subject?

E. movies, fewer than the ones
Again, what is highlighted portion depicting? Is it a modifier, if yes, then what kind of modifier is this? Appositive, and what is it modifying? Movies..?
Please explain.

Dear imhimanshu,
I'm happy to help. Thank you for verifying the OA.

Here's the full (B) version:
Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movies—fewer than have been killed by bee stings.
Remember that one of the qualities of parallel structure --- in some sense, the very point of parallelism --- is that we can omit a large number of common words as assumed. In the first clause, the subject is "seven people", or somewhat more formally, [number] people or "the number of people" --- those words are assumed in the second part of the sentence--- "fewer than the number of people that have been killed by bee stings", with the green part showing the common words that were properly omitted in the parallel structure. One could say --- the very point of parallelism is to omit such words.

Technically, I guess we would say --- the first part, up to "movies", is an independent clause. Then we get "fewer than [a number]" --- here, "than" serves as a preposition, and the omitted noun "number of people" is the object of the preposition, and the verb "have been killed" is the verb of a "that" clause modifying the object of the preposition.

Here's the full (E) version:
Only seven people this century have been killed by the great white shark, the man-eater of the movie, fewer than the ones killed by bee stings.
Again, "than" is a preposition, and the indefinite pronoun "the ones" is the object of the preposition, and this object is modified by a participial phrase "killed by bee stings." For more on participial phrases, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/participle ... -the-gmat/
I guess the GMAT prefers (B), because in (E) we are setting a full verb of a full close in parallel to participial phrase, instead of a full verb inside a noun-modifying "that" clause, which is what (B) does. Hmmm.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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When we say "melting point", it is uncountable. Its is like , the "level of water" in a pool. It can be less not fewer.
Thats why, "fewer" is appropriate here because we are counting the number of people.