pmal04 wrote:
In California today, Hispanics under the age of eighteen account for more than 43 percent, compared with a decade ago, when it was about 35 percent.
(A) In California today, Hispanics under the age of eighteen account for more than 43 percent, compared with a decade ago, when it was about 35 percent.
(B) Of the Californians under the age of eighteen, today more than 43 percent of them are Hispanic, compared with a decade ago, when it was about 35 percent.
(C) Today, more than 43 percent of Californians under the age of eighteen are Hispanic, compared with about 35 percent a decade ago.
(D) Today, compared to a decade ago, Californians who are Hispanics under the age of eighteen account for more than 43 percent, whereas it was about 35 percent.
(E) Today, Hispanics under the age of eighteen in California account for more than 43 percent, unlike a decade ago, when it was about 35 percent.
The biggest problem in (A), (B), (D) and (E) is the
"IT". The pronoun "IT" must refer to a singular noun; none of these answer choices have any singular noun to which the "IT" can refer.
All these choices contain the clause
"it was about 35 percent". WHAT was 35 percent of WHAT?
(A), (D), and (E) all say that Hispanics under the age of eighteen
"account for more than 43 percent". But 43 percent of what? The sentence does not say. We can guess that the author meant 43 per cent of the population, but the phrasing is still careless and unacceptable.
In (B), it is redundant to have both
"of them" and
"of the Californians under the age of eighteen". This level of redundancy is unacceptable.