GATE CSE 2012 | Question: 59

Question

Choose the grammatically INCORRECT sentence:

• A. They gave us the money back less the service charges of Three Hundred rupees.
• B. This country’s expenditure is not less than that of Bangladesh.
• C. The committee initially asked for a funding of Fifty Lakh rupees, but later settled for a lesser sum.
• D. This country’s expenditure on educational reforms is very less.

   

Comments

Option A is correct because "less" here means "excluding": They gave us the money back excluding the service charges of Three Hundred rupees. Another example: Original salary = Received salary less the tax.

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The grammatically INCORRECT sentence is:

"This country’s expenditure on educational reforms is very less"

Why it is incorrect

The word "less" is a comparative adjective (used to compare two things, like "A is less than B"). You cannot modify a comparative adjective with the intensifying adverb "very".

To fix this sentence, you have two options depending on what you want to emphasize:

1. Change it to a standard adjective: "...is very low" or "...is very small."

2. Remove "very" if comparing: "...is much less [than before/than another country]."

Why the other options are grammatically correct:

• "They gave us the money back less the service charges..."

  • Correct: Here, "less" is used perfectly as a preposition meaning "minus" or "excluding."

• "This country’s expenditure is not less than that of Bangladesh."

  • Correct: This is a textbook comparative structure ("less than"). Using "that of" is also grammatically vital here because it correctly compares expenditure to expenditure, rather than comparing a country to Bangladesh.

• "The committee initially asked for... but later settled for a lesser sum."

  • Correct: "Lesser" is an adjective meaning "not as great in size or amount." It correctly modifies the noun "sum."

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Best Answer for this Question: 

In the Given question Option (d) Holds an Error.

"Less" is used to make a comparsion where as in option (d) there is no comparision.It should be 

"This Country's Expenditure on Educational reforms is very low"  [Correct statement]

Answer 1

Answer is (D)

"is very less" should be "is much less" or "is very little"

Comments

@jlimbasiya The statement is "This country's expenditure is not less than that of bangladesh."

 

Does the "that" in sentence not refer to the expenditure?

 

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I have the same question

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More explanation available here : https://testbook.com/question-answer/choose-the-grammatically-incorrect-sentence--565c5b70995a2d0c5d4c14d6

Answer 2

The grammatically incorrect sentence is:

This country’s expenditure on educational reforms is very less.

Here's why:

• The adjective "less" is used to compare two things that are not equal in degree.

• In this sentence, "very" makes "less" redundant because it already emphasizes the small degree of expenditure.

• The correct way to express this would be:

  • This country’s expenditure on educational reforms is very low.
  • This country spends very little on educational reforms.

The other sentences are grammatically correct:

• They gave us the money back less the service charges of Three Hundred rupees. (Uses "less" correctly to compare the amount returned with the service charges deducted.)
• This country’s expenditure is not less than that of Bangladesh. (Correctly compares expenditures using "not less than".)
• The committee initially asked for a funding of Fifty Lakh rupees, but later settled for a lesser sum. (Uses "lesser" to compare the requested sum with the accepted amount.)

Therefore, the sentence with "very less" is the only one grammatically incorrect because it uses the comparative adjective "less" with an intensifier, making it redundant and ungrammatical.

I hope this explanation helps! Let me know if you have any other questions about grammar or sentence structure.

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Answer 3

The country's expenditure is not less than that of Bangladesh .

The correct statement should be .the country's expenditure is not less than that of Bangladesh because the country's expenditure cannot compared with Bangladesh.It should be compared with Bangladesh's expenditure