imhimanshu wrote:
Hi Experts,
Can anyone comment on how correct option works? What kind of construction is this?
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
Thanks
H
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
in "B" we don't need to THOSE to show the comparison?? —fewer than(THOSE) have been killed?