China’s economy continues to flourish this year

In the first part of the question China's growth is mentioned in present continuous tense. That is the growth is ongoing.

Each of A,B,C & D are all in past tense. Only E is in present continuous thus the answer.

China's economy continues to flourish this year: industrial production grew, inflation has eased, and the trade surplus swelled.

A. grew, inflation has eased, and the trade surplus swelled
B. has grown, inflation has eased, and the trade surplus swelled
C. has grown, inflation eased, and the trade surplus has swelled
D. has grown, inflation eased, and the trade surplus is swelling
E. is growing, inflation easing and the trade surplus swelling

Dear rs47

I'm happy to respond.

First of all, please do NOT start a new thread for a question that has already been posted on GMAT Club. Always search for question thoroughly before starting a brand new thread. If you have thoughts or questions about a certain SC problem, a pre-existing thread about the problem would the best place to post. I just merged your post into a pre-existing thread.

I will also say, I don't know the source of this question, but I think it is pure trash. In a real economy, the causes of current flourishing do not have to be all in the present moment. Things that happened last year, or even ten years ago, can still have profound consequences on the current economy. The presumption of the same tense is simply not warranted in this question. Furthermore, a mix of different tenses in parallel is 100% fine. See:
GMAT Grammar Rules: Parallelism and Verb Tenses
Given this, any of the answer choices could conceivably be correct. This is an exceptionally poorly designed question.

Here's a more rigorous SC practice question:
The mayor's five-year

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Poorly constructed question Can you please mention the question source?

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