When drive-ins were at the height of their popularity in the late 1950

I understand the answer is B.

Can someone help me with the use of "there" in this sentence.
The choice is comparing "Some 4000 existed" to "There" as in a location?

Thanks

pulkitsahani

The "some 4,000 existed" is being compared with "one quarter of that [some 4,000]". Yes, "there" means "that place" but in this sentence, the "there" is acting as a phantom subject. The real subject of the last half of the sentence is still drive-ins.... or rather "less than one-quarter as many [drive-ins]."
_________________

I got the answer, but can someone explain isn't 'as many' should always follow 'as' ?

Hi, could you explain why B is correct and C is incorrect? In option B, "as those in US in late 50's" is implicit. Why are we assuming this is implicit?

Nice explanations.
Now I will remember the concept here.
Countable/non-countable nouns, and less/few.
Thanks.
_________________

That / it -wrong Plural Drives....
Left with B and D
B more appropriate

Hello experts,
I would like some help with the answer choice D and more specifically the first part "the number is less" I do understand why the amount in the end is wrong, but "the number is less" should be substituted with "the number is fewer"? It sounds a little bit awkward or is it that number can't be followed by fewer/less and should be followed by other type of words? I'm a little bit confused.

D is wrong because of 'less' and 'amount'

Drive-ins are countable and require 'fewer' and 'number'.

We would say 'the number is fewer than one-quarter as many'.
_________________

I feel your pain here -- there's a lot of confusion when it comes to modifiers for countable/non-countable items. (That's why we made YouTube viewers suffer through this thing.)

It might help to run through a few scenarios. Imagine that Tim has 12 llamas and Bob has 11 llamas.

1) Because llamas are countable, we'd say that Bob has fewer llamas than Tim does.

2) Similarly, because llamas are countable, we'd compare the number of llamas Tim has to the number Bob has. (If we were talking about a quantity that wasn't countable in integer increments, such as orange juice, we'd refer to the amount of juice.)

3) However, 11 is itself less than 12. (You can count 11 llamas. But you can't count the number 11.)

Having fun yet?

In this sentence, we're addressing "drive-ins" which, like llamas, are countable, so we should use "number" as we do in #2 above. Because (D) incorrectly uses "amount" to refer to the "number" of drive-ins, it's wrong: we can never use "amount" to refer to countable items. And there's no need to agonize over the "less" here.

I hope that helps!
_________________

If Option A was "there are fewer than one-quarter that many" would it be correct?
What does "that" refer to in Option A?

If Option A were "there are fewer than one-quarter that many" would it be correct?

What does "that" refer to in Option A?

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubts.

Yes; if "less" in Option A were replaced with "fewer", the answer choice would be correct. In Option A "that" refers to "4,000", but it does so as a preposition rather than as a pronoun.

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

Well, there'd no longer be a concrete grammatical error, but you could argue that this construction is still less than ideal, because the "that," while not technically wrong, is confusing. Take another example:

While half the llamas on Tim's farm enjoy wind-surfing, there are at least one-quarter that do not enjoy water sports of any kind.

Here, "that" is used to introduce a full clause describing 25% of the llamas.

In your example, when I see "There are fewer than one-quarter that" my initial expectation is for "that" to be used the same way, and I'm about to see that there fewer than one-quarter that do something. But that's not what we get. If I reread the sentence, I can eventually figure out that "that" is used as an adverb describing "many," so it's not a concrete error. But if I have a choice between one option I need to reread to make sense of, and one option that's crystal-clear the first time through, I'm going for crystal-clear every time.

I hope that helps!
_________________

In option E, By logic of the sentence , the pronoun "it" refers to drive ins, which is plural. Does this calls for an defining error or not.

(A) there are less than one-quarter that many

(B) there are fewer than one-quarter as many

(C) there are fewer than one-quarter of that amount

(D) the number is less than one-quarter the amount

(E) it is less than one-quarter of that amount

First of all, what exactly is "less than one-quarter of that amount"? The "drive-ins" themselves? Or the number of drive-ins? It's the latter -- and if that's not clear, trying substituting the "it" with "drive-ins" and with "number of drive-ins".

So the problem isn't that "it" is singular. The problem is that "it" is trying to refer to something that wasn't mentioned earlier in the sentence (the number of drive-ins).

And that highlights another crucial issue in (E): because drive-ins are countable, "amount" doesn't work. We have a number of drive-ins, not an amount of drive-ins.

I hope that helps!
_________________

When drive-ins were at the height of their popularity in the late 1950's, some 4,000 existed in the United States, but today there are less than one-quarter that many.

Option Elimination -

(A) there are less than one-quarter that many - "less" refers to the countable noun "some 4000 drive-ins," which is wrong.

(B) there are fewer than one-quarter as many - "fewer" is good. The complete sentence is "There are fewer than one-quarter as many (as existed in the United States)" or "There are fewer than one-quarter as many [drive-ins] today as there were at the height of their popularity in the late 1950s."

(C) there are fewer than one-quarter of that amount - We are discussing the countable nouns "drive-ins," so "many" is preferable.

(D) the number is less than one-quarter the amount - Both less and amount issue.

(E) it is less than one-quarter of that amount - Both less and amount issue. Moreover, what is "it" referring to? The current number of drive-ins? But where is it mentioned in the sentence? Wrong.