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

[hmgmat]

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

There is a post about this question but the post is locked because this question appears on the paper test set.
Now, this question has been moved to the GMATPrep software. Hope that instructors here can offer some light...
The OA is B.

I found the explanation of "as many" in Longman Dictionary:
as many=a number that is equal to another number
examples:
- They say the people of Los Angeles speak 12 languages and teach just as many in the schools.
- A great trip! We visited five countries in as many days.

My questions:
- Why "fewer than" is used in B? In OG10/11/Prep, "less than X percent of Y" is used regardless whether Y is countable. I assume that "one-quarter" here is logically equal to "25 percent". So should it be "less than one-quarter"?
- According to Longman Dictionary, "as many" in B is equal to "some 4000"; if I plug it into the sentence, the sentence reads:
When drive-ins were at the height of their popularity in the late 1950s, some 4,000 existed in the United States, but today there are fewer than one-quarter some 4000.
Should it be "one-quarter of some 4000"?

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

people!
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME TRYING TO PROVE THAT CORRECT ANSWERS (from official problems) ARE WRONG.
CORRECT ANSWERS ARE ALWAYS CORRECT.

seriously.
these are official problems, and their correct answers are officially correct. it is absolutely pointless to try to find errors in them, because there won't be errors in them.
at least you won't find anything that's an error by the standards of the gmat - and those are the only errors that matter on this test.

IF SOME OTHER SOURCE SAYS THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG, BUT THE GMAT SAYS IT'S CORRECT, THEN IT'S CORRECT.
this is the case even if ten, or a hundred, other sources say that it's wrong.
the gmat is a dictatorship. it's their playground, they make the rules, and that's it.
done.
all that time you spent (a) questioning the correct answer, (b) looking it up in the longman dictionary, and (c) quoting that dictionary here has been COMPLETELY WASTED TIME that you could have spent studying this correct answer, abstracting and memorizing the relevant grammatical patterns.

(if it sounds like i'm yelling here, then, good. please do not continue to question the official correct answers.
feel free, though, to question suspicious "correct" answers from other sources.)

I found the explanation of "as many" in Longman Dictionary:
.
.
.

"twice as many", "one-quarter as many", etc. are not only acceptable as idiomatic expressions but also extremely common in the english language.
since this idiom is present in the correct answer, which was written by gmac, IT IS CORRECT.
end of discussion.
period.

- Why "fewer than" is used in B? In OG10/11/Prep, "less than X percent of Y" is used regardless whether Y is countable.

can you cite specific problems in which "less" is used when Y is a countable quantity?
if you can cite one, our development team would love to see it.

[hmgmat]

OG10#101. Even though the direct costs of malpractice disputes amounted to less than one percent of the $541 billion the nation spent on health care last year, doctors say fear of lawsuits plays a major role in health-care inflation.

prep: In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.
The full question is here: in-the-major-cities-of-industrialized-countries-at-the-end-t541.html
in case, anyone is interested ;-)

For OG10#101, I can reason that "less" is used because we always say, "Bill Gates has less than $80 billion".

For the prep one, I have no idea why it uses "less" because the sentence is talking # of homes there; in other words, "homes" is not considered a mass noun. If it were a mass noun, then "one percent" couldn't be used to quantify the number of homes.

I understand that they are all official questions and I should just treat them as correct. Which I have been doing since day 20 or so? But at the same time, I want to know what I should write down on my note: "fewer than X-quarter as many" is an idiom? or?

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

prep: In the major cities of industrialized countries at the end of the nineteenth century, important public places such as theaters, restaurants, shops, and banks had installed electric lighting, but electricity was in less than one percent of homes, where lighting was still provided mainly by candles or gas.
The full question is here: in-the-major-cities-of-industrialized-countries-at-the-end-t541.html
in case, anyone is interested ;-)

wow, that's a great find. i'd buy you a beer for that one if you were in front of me.

that usage is, indeed, inconsistent with the gmat's other usage, which i've detailed in the post above.

here's the saving grace, though: it's not a split.
in other words, ALL of the choices say "less than 1% of homes", so you're not making decisions based on that particular construction. my hypothesis: because they're not splitting that construction, they just didn't pay as much attention to it as they should have.

in a split between "less than 1% of homes" and "fewer than 1% of homes", i strongly suspect that the correct answer would contain the latter.
we can only wait and see.

[hmgmat]

haha. I wish that I got that free beer.
Thanks.

[JonathanSchneider]

: )

[hmgmat]

Sorry, I want to revisit the usage of "as many".

OG has mentioned many times that "as" has to be paired with another "as" when the sentence is expressing some sort of "comparison".

I won't challenge the correctiveness of this prep question.

But I want to know when I can use "as many" without another "as". Or even more general, when I can say "as [adjective]/[adverb]" without another "as".

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

But I want to know when I can use "as many" without another "as". Or even more general, when I can say "as [adjective]/[adverb]" without another "as".

Thanks in advance.

in general, you won't need the second half of that construction if you have already mentioned the data elsewhere in the sentence.
the earlier part of this sentence already mentions the # of drive-ins in the u.s. in the 1950's, so it is not stated again. since it is not stated as part of an actual parallel construction, you don't need the second "as".

--

examples:
there were once 20 shirts on this shelf, but, now, barely half as many are left. --> i already mentioned the data (i.e., 20 shirts) earlier in the sentence, so it's not mentioned again.

there are barely half as many shirts on this shelf [i]as there were last week.[/i] --> i didn't mention this comparison point earlier, so i'm mentioning it now.

[hmgmat]

thanks.

[StaceyKoprince]

This is a pretty rare setup - we have an ellipsis, so the second "as" is implied.

Notice that they also didn't include anything after where the "as would have gone - the other half of the comparison.

today, there are fewer than one quarter as many (drive-ins as there were at the height of their popularity in the late 1950s). If I'm not going to say all that other stuff about the drive-ins here, then I also don't need the second "as." But if I were going to say all that stuff about the drive-ins right after the "as many" then I would need the second "as." (Of course, I couldn't say all that stuff after the "as many" unless I also got rid of the opening clause, or it would be redundant.)

[hmgmat]

Stacey, thanks for your further explanation =)

[JonathanSchneider]

: )

[tankobe]

then, what wrong with C and D? i am not sure.
C. there are fewer than one-quarter of that amount
D. the number is less than one-quarter [of] the amount

C, is the reason that the amount(or word of same kind: the figure/number/ratio) just can refer the figure 4,000 rather the 4,000 dirve-ins?
D, is the rasone that we need of? i know when we use X times/half before the amount(or word of same kind: the size/height/number/length/pay/wage/cost], we do not need of. if so, when we use percent/fourth/quarter etc., we need of.

[tankobe]

[a baned source has been delected]

[RonPurewal]

then, what wrong with C and D? i am not sure.
C. there are fewer than one-quarter of that amount
D. the number is less than one-quarter [of] the amount

C, is the reason that the amount(or word of same kind: the figure/number/ratio) just can refer the figure 4,000 rather the 4,000 dirve-ins?
D, is the rasone that we need of? i know when we use X times/half before the amount(or word of same kind: the size/height/number/length/pay/wage/cost], we do not need of. if so, when we use percent/fourth/quarter etc., we need of.

this is a little bit too much analysis. you can rule these choices out in a single stroke, because they contain "amount".

recall that "amount" is a construction that can only be used to refer to UNCOUNTABLE quantities -- i.e., continuous quantities / mass nouns, which are not divided into distinctly countable units.
for instance, you can have an "amount" of water, furniture, etc., but you CANNOT have an "amount" of people, items, etc.

this sentence is very clearly speaking about a countable quantity -- the number (not "amount") of drive-in theaters. since that's countable, any choice with "amount" can be eliminated immediately.