Because sales dropped in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage

Hi..can you please explain why "less" has been used??, IMO fewer should have been correct as 80% defines a quantity.

Posted from my mobile device

Thanks for the tip! I also thought that since it's a countable quantity it should be few / fewer...

can anyone explain why option "E" is wrong??

Hi Mike,

Can you please shed some light on this concept of few/less in cases where countable nouns are grouped.

Split here is -

1. Less Vs Fewer - Less is preferred here
2. Correct Comparison - Less than is the correct comparison

That of in (E) is incorrect because that has no clear referent...

Hence correct answer is (D)

Hi mikemcgarry

I am confused about the comparison , as following from Magoosh SC practice
Because sales dropped in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, in 2009 Vendiflex Corporation slashed its workforce to 2,500, almost 80% fewer than 2008.

A) almost 80% fewer than 2008

B) almost 80% less than 2008

C) almost 80% less than the 2008 workforce

D) almost 80% less than that of the 2008 workforce

E) almost 80% fewer than that of the 2008 workforce

IMO,
Point #1 -- the comparison is 2,500 and a value of 2008 workforce, so I picked up "that of 2008 workforce"
Point #2 -- few modifies countable noun, less modifies uncountable noun, here, 2,500 is countable, like 5 miles, 10 pounds ... So I picked "few"

after your video explanation, I know my approach is wrong, but I have no idea why it is incorrect,
genuinely want your help,

Thanks in advance

Have a nice day.
>_~

Lemme take a shot before you get the 'official' answer from Mike himself

Sorry mate, but ur understanding is severely flawed. I wud say, the wrong understanding was in turn wronged again in Point#2 above. I will try to explain how-

As you correctly identified the split is at two points- Comparison and Few vs Less.

1) Comparison: The comparison is between the workforce of 2008 and the workforce of 2009. And not between the values of the workforces. There is no indication in the underlined portion that tells us that this portion modifies the number 2500 (it just happens to be the last thing before comma).

2) Less vs Few: Please understand that Workforce is different from Workers. In fact, Workforce is the number of workers. And we would treat Workforce as uncountable and Workers as countable. You dont say 1 workforce or 2 workforces. But you say 1 worker, 2 workers etc. Please consider the below eg.

The number of workers was 10 less than the number of workers last year -Comparing numbers (eg. 20 is less than 30 and not fewer)
There were 10 fewer workers than there were last year. - Comparing workers

Therefore, a Workforce is less than and Workers are fewer than.

Now, wen is say that 'wrong understanding was, in turn, wronged again in Point#2', i meant that even if you got the comparison wrong and compared Values, you will have to use Less and not Few. Because a value is always Less than another one and not Fewer than. In fact, its not about the number attached but the entity that is being compared that will decide whether its countable or uncountable.

From your eg above-
5 miles is countable but Distance is uncountable (therefore Less than). And therefore, The distance is 5 miles less.
10 pounds is countable but Money is uncountable (therefore Less than). And therefore, The money is 10 pounds less.
Similarly,
5 Workers is countable (therefore Fewer) but Workforce is uncountable (therefore Less than)

Coming to the question, since its Workforce that is being compared and Less than that should be used. IMO, the correct answer should be C.

Hope this helps.

Dear zoezhuyan,

How are you my friend? I'm happy to respond.

What you have posted is the newer revised version of this question. I moved it into this thread, with the old version of the same question.

I see that arhumsid responded, but I'll add a few thoughts.

On point one, if we wanted to refer to the individual workers (plural), we would have to say "those of the 2008 workforce." The word "that" is wrong because it's a singular pronoun referring to something plural.

If we had the correct pronoun to refer to the workers, then we could use "fewer" to refer to them also. Since we don't have that correct pronoun, we can't refer to the individual workers, so we can't use "fewer." We have to compare workforce to workforce, and use "less."

Does all this make sense?

Have a lovely day, my friend.

Mike

Because sales dropped in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, in 2009 Vendiflex Corporation slashed its workforce to 2,500, almost 80% fewer than that of 2008.

A. almost 80% fewer than that of 2008 - fewer is incorrect as we are comparing workforce (uncountable )
B. almost 80% fewer than 2008 - fewer is incorrect as we are comparing workforce (uncountable )
C. almost 80% less than 2008 - illogical comparison - workforce and year
D. almost 80% less than the 2008 workforce - Correct
E. almost 80% less than that of the 2008 workforce -illogical comparison

Answer D

Here is my opinion.

E. almost 80% less than THAT of the 2008 workforce

It's workforce vs workforce, so if THAT refers to workforce then answer E will become "less than workforce of the 2008 workforce."

This is a question full of traps , how do i know because i fell for it and chose A.

The original sentence is incorrect .
If we had a number instead of that of 2008 then it would have been correct .As such it has incorrect comparison.
Option D fixes this and therefore is the correct answer .
Option E on the other hand is wordy .

Magoosh Official Explanation:

Split #1: the comparison. We need to compare workforce to workforce. Comparing the 2009 workforce to the year 2008 is completely illogical---this is what choices (A) & (B) do. Choice (C) compares workforce to workforce, which is correct. Choices (D) & (E) compare the 2009 workforce to "that of the 2008 workforce," in other word, some quality or characteristic of the 2008 workforce---this compares one entire workforce to a quality or characteristic of another workforce, which is illogical, so (D) & (E) are not correct.


Split #2: "less" vs "fewer". This is a tricky split. We use "fewer" for countable nouns, even when dealing with percents -- the percentage of a countable noun is countable, and the percentage of an uncountable noun is uncountable.

If we were actually talking about the number of employees, that's something we can count, so we would have to use "fewer" --- e.g. "there were 9850 fewer employees." Here, though, we are referring to the "workforce" itself, not the individual employees.

"Workforce" is not countable. Although "workforce" can refer to any positive integer value of (whether 2,500 workers, or 50,000 workers, or 10 workers, etc.), the key point is that the word itself is always uncountable. That is, we can't say, "How many of your workforce are left this year?" Instead, we say, "How much of your workforce is left this year?" In short, workforce is not countable, and therefore requires "less" instead of "fewer."

The only possible answer is (C).

Could you please explain why D and not E

Answere should be A
workforce is countable so use fewer and than 2008 is wrong compaarison so flat A is Ans

Hello NarayanaGupta007,

We hope this finds you well.

To resolve this query, we would like to point out that, in this case, "workforce" refers to the totality of workers in the abstract, meaning it is actually uncountable.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Hi mikemcgarry,

Can you explain in detail how D takes precedence over E?

Also can you clarify your statement :

"On point one, if we wanted to refer to the individual workers (plural), we would have to say "those of the 2008 workforce." The word "that" is wrong because it's a singular pronoun referring to something plural."

There is no clear mention of individual workers in the sentence. Why wouldn't "that" unambiguously refer to the workforce? The number of people in a workforce is plural, but here the reference is to the workforce which indeed is singular.

Am I missing something ?

Hello Namangupta1997,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, D takes precedence over E because in Option E, the pronoun "that" has no logical referent.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team