Motorist can anticipate less delays at the 40th Street Station ramp

Question

Motorist can anticipate less delays at the 40th Street Station ramp  as soon as police finish clearing the disabled truck from the right lane.

A. Motorist can anticipate less delays at the 40th Street Station ramp 
B. Motorist at the 40th Street Station ramp can anticipate fewer delays 
C. Motorists can anticipate fewer delays at the 40th Street Station ramp 
D. Anticipate less delays for motorists at the 40th Street Station ramp 
E. At the 40th Street Station ramp, motorists can anticipate less delays

RastogiSarthak99 · Answer

I'm hoping OA is C. Since 'Motorists' is plural and the structure of the sentence flows well with option C.

Karmesh · Answer

Is DELAY countable or uncountable?
IMO it should be uncountable as I certainly can't count delay.
on the other hand, fewer delay makes more sense!
HELP HELP
Also, if anyone can point me to a blog or a post to understand countable/uncountable!

TIA

AjiteshArun · Answer

Delay  can be used in a non-count sense (for example: "without delay") to refer to a delay in general. Here, however, we are looking at ~ instances  of delay. In this case,  delay  is countable.

delays  at the airport 
 traffic  delays

awjadhav · Answer

So Arun can you please tell us what is the correct answer

Sent from my iPhone using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

hero_with_1000_faces · Answer

AjiteshArun

however any form of measurement unit requires "less or greater" such as percentages, probability etc, i think which "anticipation" is considered measurement unit.

I did feel the sentence is talking about instances of delays, so fewer should come, however i wasn't sure so went with "E"

Could you please help us in this regard.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Delays is a count noun here, so I'd go with fewer delays . At least on the GMAT, as the exam tests this (though not very often). Otherwise, I don't really care about the "difference" between less and fewer . In fact, I actually like using less .

AjiteshArun · Answer

Don't worry about the  anticipate . Focus on only the word  delays . We could even replace the  anticipate , and go with something like  expect .

Motorists can expect  fewer  delays  .

If we want something that has less to do with the future, we could go with  encountered .

Motorists encountered  fewer  delays  .

In other words,  anticipate  does not affect the  less  and  fewer  split. That comes down to whether the  noun  is countable or not.

sarkarshantanu · Answer

"Motorist can anticipate" holds the key here.
As "Motorist" is singular and "anticipate" goes with plural subject, so we can skip options with this combination.

Posted from my mobile device

AjiteshArun · Answer

It is incorrect to use  motorist  here (we need "a motorist"), but the verb is not a problem. That  can  means that the verb won't change.

A motorist   can anticipate ...
 Motorists   can anticipate ...

The  can anticipate  doesn't change.

priyanshii26 · Answer

I have read that less comes with uncountable noun and few comes with countable noun,
so here why we are going with few?

Motorist can anticipate less delays at the 40th Street Station ramp

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Motorist can anticipate less delays at the 40th Street Station ramp

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards