<p>the programmers always talked of having too much to do , but in truth (they had a lesser amount of work to do than their colleagues.)</p>
<p>to revise this sentence
i choose:
they were having less work to do than</p>
<p>i thought this was in parallel was the prior sentence. however, i was wrong.</p>
<p>the correct answer is:
they had less work to do than</p>
<p>i don't understand............</p>
<p>The use of “lesser” in the sentence is so blatantly wrong that it’s hard to look at any other aspect of the sentence.</p>
<p>You use “lesser” to compare two items. For example “the lesser of two evils”.</p>
<p>In addition to incorrect grammatical use, the phrase “lesser amount of work to do” is awkward. You can keep the awkwardness and correct the grammar to “less amount of work to do”. Still the word “amount” is unnecessary. “Less” inherently is about “amount”.</p>
<p>Regarding your concern that the sentence corrected with the use of “less” instead of “lesser” is not parallel, I don’t see that being the case. </p>
<p>Take the two main clauses:</p>
<p>They talked of having too much to do
They had less work to do</p>
<p>That’s parallel. Isn’t it?</p>
<p>From a test taking perspective, it’s not necessary to argue the point. In the writing section you’ll find “one error” or “no error” in the sentence, but not “two errors”. So once you realize that the use of lesser is wrong, and why that’s the case, fix the error in the simplest of ways and almost always you will have the right answer.</p>
But there is a comparison made between colleagues and programmere… Pls explain…
Thanx in advance