Question

Simplify the underlined words

In 1979 lack of rain reduced India's rice production to about 41 million tons, nearly 25 percent less than those of the 1978 harvest.
A. less than those of the 1978 harvest
B. less than the 1978 harvest
C. less than 1978
D. fewer than 1978
E. fewer than that of India's 1978 harvest

Answer 1

Hint: The important thing here is to check that what is being compared, and whether that is an uncountable or countable noun. Less is used for uncountable things whereas fewer for countable.

Complete answer:
The above given sentence makes a comparison of the rice harvest in the year 1979 with its previous year. The underlined part of the sentence needs to be simplified.
Option A is not the correct answer as the usage of ‘those of’ in context to the word ‘harvest’ is grammatically incorrect.
Option B is the simplified version of the underlined part of the statement and usage of ‘than’ with less is correct as a comparison is being made here with that of previous year. Thus Option B is the correct answer.
 Option C, is also incorrect as the comparison is being made that of ‘rice production’ with the ‘harvest’ and this word is missing in this option which ultimately suggests that we are comparing rice production of 1979 with the year 1978 itself which certainly isn’t the case and grammatically incorrect too.
Option D is incorrect because the important thing here is to check that the thing that is being compared is ‘rice production’, which is uncountable. Here we are not comparing ‘41 million tons’. Thus fewer only go with countable nouns.
Option E is also incorrect because here we are comparing "rice production" and "harvest." These are not countable. Thus fewer cannot fit with the noun.

Option B ‘less than the 1978 harvest’ is the correct answer.

Note:
Nouns can be countable or uncountable. Countable nouns can be counted, e.g. an apple, two apples, three apples, etc. Uncountable nouns cannot be counted, e.g. air, rice, water, etc.