The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Comparisons

• A comparison can only be made between similar things.

A: This answer choice incorrectly compares the verb phrase "The European Economic Community exported" to the noun phrase "Japan's exports"; remember, a comparison can only be made between similar things.

B: This answer choice incorrectly compares the verb phrase "The European Economic Community exported" to the noun phrase "the United States" and the pronoun phrase "what the Japanese exports were"; remember, a comparison can only be made between similar things.

C: Correct. This answer choice correctly compares the verb phrase "The European Economic Community exported" with the verb phrases "the United States exported" and "the Japanese did".

D: This answer choice incorrectly compares the verb phrase "The European Economic Community exported" to the pronoun phrase "what the United States did" and the noun phrase "Japan's exports"; remember, a comparison can only be made between similar things.

E: This answer choice incorrectly compares the verb phrase "The European Economic Community exported" to the pronoun phrase "what the United States exported" and the noun phrase "the Japanese exports"; remember, a comparison can only be made between similar things.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

C it is

tests parallelism of the phrases
in c we have
The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than the United States exported and nearly twice as much as the Japanese did


E comes close by phrase after and is wrong

This is a clear "C"....we r comparing action of european community with US and Japan....only "C" keeps it all in ||.


the United States exported and nearly twice as much as the Japanese did

good one.

Will go with C for parallelsim.

X exported.., 60% more than Y exported and nearlytwice as much as the Z did <exported>

The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports.


Explanation:
When we say that,
Japan's exports saw a record plunge in February OR
Japanese exports saw a record plunge in February
we are referring to the goods and not to the amount (in figures).

The original sentence tries to compare the amount of total exports, which is correctly stated in option C.
-------------------------------
(A) the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports ---> Usage of the words Japan's exports is wrong. Changes the original meaning of the sentence.

(B) the United States' and nearly double what the Japanese exports were ---> Usage of the words Japanese exports is wrong. Changes the original meaning of the sentence.

(C) the United States exported and nearly twice as much as the Japanese did ---> Correct

(D) what the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports ---> Same explanation as that stated in option A.

(E) what the United States exported and nearly double the Japanese exports ---> Same explanation as that stated in option B.
-------------------------------

Hope that helps.


Regards,
Technext

+1 C

Logical comparison:
EU exported vs. US exported vs. Japan did

In E, you are comparing countries vs. Japan's exports; it is not parallel.

There are three countries, EEC, the US and Japan whose exports are being compared. So we need three verbs overall and two in the underlined portion to keep their actions parallel. You will notice only choice C exhibits three verbs(they must be equal in form and function)

Rule tested here is parallelism on export done by 3 countries/communities. Non-underlined part "European Economic Community exported" need to be parallel to those in the underlined part.

A) "European Economic Community exported", "United States did", and "Japan's exports" are not parallel.
B) "European Economic Community exported", "United States", and "Japanese exports were" are not parallel. Export of EEC is compared with US and not export of US.
C) "European Economic Community exported", "United States exported", and "Japanese did" are parallel. Correct.
D) "European Economic Community exported", "United States did", and "Japan's exports" are not parallel.
E) "European Economic Community exported", "United States exported", and "Japanese exports" are not parallel.

Correct answer is C.

Hi ishaniscrazee,
This is in response to your PM.

The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports.

Meaning Analysis:

The ECC exported goods in 1988. So did the US and Japan. But the ECC’s exports were 60% more than those of the US and twice as much as those of Japan.

Error Analysis:

So here action of exporting of three political entities has been compared. The action of ECC and US export has been correctly compared. But this is not the case with the action of Japan because there is no action mentioned here. This is not a parallel comparison.

PoE:

A) the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports: Incorrect for the reason stated above.

B) the United States and nearly double what the Japanese exports were: Incorrect.
i. Action of export of the ECC has been compared to the US. This is illogical.
ii. Use of “double” is not idiomatic here.

C) the United States exported and nearly twice as much as the Japanese did: Correct. All the actions are correctly compared.

D) what the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports: Incorrect. Repeats the same error as in choice A.

E) what the United States exported and nearly double the Japanese exports: Incorrect. Repeats the comparison error of choice A and the “double” idiom error of choice B.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Can someone explain why option E is wrong

Lack of parallelism.

Structure X AND Y
X = 60% more than what the US exports
Y = double the Japaneses exports

The blue highlighted parts are not parallel.

X should have been 60% more than the US exports in order to maintain parallelism with double the Japanese exports .

Can any expert reply on this ? Not sure how C is the right answer

The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports.

A) the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports
B) the United States and nearly double what the Japanese exports were
C) the United States exported and nearly twice as much as the Japanese did
D) what the United States did and nearly twice as much as Japan's exports
E) what the United States exported and nearly double the Japanese exports

The comparison structure here is "X 60%more than/ twice as much as Y " - Y in turn is comprised of a parrallel structure "P and Q"

Hence the overall structure is " X 60% more than P and twice as much as Q"

X = European Economy exported
P = United States exported
Q = the Japaneses did (exported).

Moreover,
The comparison between X and P is: 60% more than
The comparison between X and Q is:nearly twice as much as (= 200% of = 100% more than)

In the correct option C, the above parallelism is maintained properly:

The European Economic Community exported just under $400 billion in goods in 1988, sixty percent more than the United States exported and nearly twice as much as the Japanese did.


Option A: The element Q (Japan's exports) is not parallel to X and P.
Option B: P (United States) is not parallel to X. Q is also wrong since it uses "were" rather than "exported" or "did".
Option D: The element Q (Japan's exports) is not parallel to X and P.
Option E: The element Q (Japanese exports) is not parallel to X and P.

By virtue of omission, in C --> nearly twice as much as the Japanese did {exported}?

Doesn't this sound incorrect? Shouldn't it be did export and since export is not present anywhere in the sentence, shouldn't we ideally repeat it?

It is not omission; it is replacement - "exported" is replaced by "did". It is a common practice to REPLACE the verb in the second element of a parallelism structure with the verb "to do" .

I understand that part. But if I remember (correctly), one of your post, you mentioned that the verb should be present in the earlier part of the sentence in the same form as intended in the second part else repeat?

Yes, you are absolutely right. In this example, if the second verb were "has"/"have" ("...as the Japanese have"), then the point you have mentioned would be applicable (this would then be a case of omission) - since there is no past participle ("exported") form in the first part of the sentence, using "have" would be wrong.

However the simple past "exported" can be replaced with "did". (This is not a case of omission.)