Around 1900, fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay area landed mor

[MdAbuAsad]

Around 1900, fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay area landed more than seventeen million pounds of shad in a single year, but by 1920, over-fishing and the proliferation of milldams and culverts that have blocked shad migrations up their spawning streams had reduced landings to less than four million pounds.

(A) that have blocked shad migrations up their spawning streams had reduced landings to less
(B) that blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams had reduced landings to less
(C) that blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams reduced landings to a lower amount
(D) having blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams reduced landings to less
(E) having blocked shad migrations up their spawning streams had reduced landings to an amount lower

[MdAbuAsad]

Around 1900, fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay area landed more than seventeen million pounds of shad in a single year, but by 1920, over-fishing and the proliferation of milldams and culverts that have blocked shad migrations up their spawning streams had reduced landings to less than four million pounds.

(A) that have blocked shad migrations up their spawning streams had reduced landings to less
(B) that blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams had reduced landings to less
(C) that blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams reduced landings to a lower amount
(D) having blocked shad from migrating up their spawning streams reduced landings to less
(E) having blocked shad migrations up their spawning streams had reduced landings to an amount lower

In this question, the correct choice is B.
The choice B says:
.......landingS to LESS than four million pounds.
^^ The 'landings' is plural. Shouldn't the 'LESS" be FEWER as the 'landings' is countable?
Thanks Experts.

[Whit Garner]

Hi MdAbuAsad!

So sorry for the delay on this reply! But The word "landings" is being used in a very unusual (secondary definition) way. To the point that, we'd bet that it got retired because it's likely to have been a biased question (towards native speakers) - I saw that this was from an old edition of the OG but hasn't been reprinted in new editions in some time (so it's even been retired from the retired questions).

This isn't a 1 landings, 2 landings, 3 landings situation—where the boat itself is landing (ie, docking) repeatedly. Rather, landing is being used as a synonym for catch (fisherman landed = fisherman caught), which is not countable. So their catch (volume) is less than four million pounds.

But that's so specific to knowing the language—that's why we'd argue that it likely got retired because it showed bias towards native speakers (which the test is working to no do any longer)!


Whit

[MdAbuAsad]

So, you're technically saying that this kinda things should be ignored in real GMAT, right?

[dmitryknowsbest]

It's not so much that we'd ignore this on the real GMAT, but that the GMAT is trying not to present questions like this anymore, so you hopefully won't see one like this. For this particular problem, we still do need to recognize how "landings" is being used to get to the answer, but I wouldn't spend time studying this, since you're not likely to see that issue again.