A recent survey regarding the use of the Internet by the

Beautiful explanation...Kudos!

E because of correct idiom usage 'as much as' and correct tense.Subscriptions to and for can be eliminated.'Similar to the number' in B is incorrect usage.D is wordy and unclear.hence E.
Moreover the best catch is parallelism.Refer to the usage of subscribed in third line.
A definite E.Hope my explanation is correct.

E is parallel and is using the correct idiom. (as mush as).

in this comparison, the first phrase has are subscribed to. So to make || with it we need to have are subscribed to.

Only E has that. Again we are comparing non countable noun(%of something)so we are using as much as

A- the same as the number of those is wordier.
B as we are comparing the % of people, it cannot be similar
C same for equivalent to. numbers cannot be equivalent. either same or not.
D has tense issue hence not ||

The first part of the sentence says "are subscribed to" and E mantains the parallelism. "As much as" is the correct idiom to compare %, "almost the same as", "almost similar" or "almost equivalent" are all worse than the structure in D and E. Between those E is better: 95% of them are subsribed ..., as much as are subscribed

A, B, and D can also be eliminated because they improperly use "number" and C can be eliminated because it uses "those"

The sentence is comparing percentages so either we need to use "percent" in the second part of the comparison or we need to use nothing (as E does) so that "percent" is implied

A recent survey regarding the use of the Internet by the nation’s top business leaders found that nearly ninety-five percent of them are subscribed to business-related RSS feeds, almost the same as the number of those who have subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal.

1. the same as the number of those who have subscriptions to - comparing number of people
2. similar to the number who subscribe to - comparing number (wrong use of "who")
3. equivalent to those who have subscriptions for - comparing people
4. as much as the number of those who subscribe to - comparing number of people
5. as much as are subscribed to - correct idiom, comparing %

IMO E
Meaning intends - the survey regarding internet use by business leaders found 95% subscribed to ..... vs (comparison to) x% (here it refers to same) subscribed to ....

Firstly, for numerical abstraction such as percentage, figure, rate, quantity, ... we consider uncountable. So "as much as" is correct.
Secondly, the structure should be parallel, "are subscribed to RSS" // "are subscribed to the WSJ"

Let examine each answers:

A recent survey regarding the use of the Internet by the nation’s top business leaders found that nearly ninety-five percent of them are subscribed to business-related RSS feeds, almost the same as the number of those who have subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal.

1. the same as the number of those who have subscriptions to - WRONG - "95% of them" is plural, but "the number of..." is singular; the structure is not parallel
2. similar to the number who subscribe to - WRONG - same reason as A.
3. equivalent to those who have subscriptions for - WRONG - equivalent is used to compare things, characteristic, not people. For example, he is equivalent to me, sounds weird, right?
4. as much as the number of those who subscribe to - WRONG - same reason as A + not parallel: "are subscribed" and "subscribe to" are not parallel.
5. as much as are subscribed to - CORRECT

Hope it helps.

______________________
Please kudo if my post helps! Thank you.

Easy pick between D & E..E is correct.

The number is always singular... so "the number of those who subscribe" is incorrect

Be careful because you are incorrectly analyzing S/V agreement within a relative clause.

The relative clause "who subscribe" follows the noun phrase "the number of those," so either it refers to the closest noun and describes "those" or it refers to the entire noun phrase and describes "the number." Because it begins with the relative pronoun "who," it is describing a person and must describe "those."

Since "those" is plural, "subscribe" is correctly plural in D. We can also see this because the people being referred to by "those" are doing the subscribing, not "the number."

D is wrong for other reasons (using "number" even though percentages are being compared, using "much" to describe a number, and failing to retain the passive voice that the original sentence uses), but you should not eliminate it for having a plural verb.

ninety-five percent of them --> Is still countable , right?
How can we use as much as ??????

This looks more like a comparison issue. In A, B and D we are comparing ninety-five percent, a ratio with the number, an absolute figure. This is not correct. In C, we wrongly seem to be comparing a percentage with to those, probably business leaders.
So E is the remainder

completely agree with you on A, B, and C.
D in addition - slightly changes the meaning.
the intended meaning - people who are subscribed to WSJ = we are talking about a survey that analyzed the % of people who are subscribed.
the meaning from D - subscribe - or do smth on a regular basis. - this is incorrect.

Merged topics. Please, search before posting questions!

In general terms, do we use "equivalent to" for comparison of countable or uncountable things?
Can someone explain the usage of equivalent to?

Thanks

Using comparisons alone you can eliminate A,B,C and D -

A,B and D is comparing percentages with numbers - hence out.

C has "those" - so again comparing percentages to business leaders.

Hence E.

@Experts - kindly correct me if I'm wrong.

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