GATE CS 2012 Q59 — General Aptitude

To identify the grammatically INCORRECT sentence, let us analyze each option:

• Option A: "They gave us the money back less the service charges..."
  Here, "less" is used correctly as a preposition meaning "minus" or "excluding".
• Option B: "This country’s expenditure is not less than that of Bangladesh."
  "less than" is correctly used here to compare uncountable quantities (expenditure).
• Option C: "...settled for a lesser sum."
  "lesser" is an adjective meaning "not as great in size or amount", which correctly modifies the noun "sum".
• Option D: "This country’s expenditure on educational reforms is very less."
  This is grammatically incorrect. "Less" is a comparative adjective (the comparative form of "little"). We cannot modify a comparative adjective directly with the intensifier "very". Instead, the sentence should use "very small" or "much less".

Therefore, Option D is the grammatically incorrect sentence.