Digital mental health has turned into a multibillion-dollar industry

I am not too sure about what this sentence is trying to convey. What are the numbers? Number of companies? Number of subscribers? Sales and profit figures? I don't know.
The numbers belong to Digital mental health industry - that much is clear.

The numbers cannot belong to "10,000 applications". That itself is a number. What are these applications? Number of companies? Number of subscribers? Again, I am not sure.

Option (A) gives:
10,000 applications, with numbers ...
What are these numbers with the applications? That doesn't sound correct at all.

So (C) is better. "Their numbers" means numbers belonging to "Digital mental health industry"

How to decide between option C & option D ??

greater than vs. more than

Hi Everyone,

VeritasKarishma

Why can't we use more than here?, As numbers are 120 times, so whatever number is we can basically count it. So shouldn't we use more than?
Also in Option E, it correctly compares 2 similar things, i.e numbers that are now to what they were.

Can you please suggest why option E is wrong, also regarding why we are using greater than inplace of more than?

From whatever I understood of the sentence, we are not adding any numbers and comparing the sum.

We are comparing each number with its previous counterpart. To compare two numbers, we use greater than e.g. A is greater than B.

Say the numbers being talked about are: free subscribers, paid members, premium members
So if in early 2020, there are 100 free subscribers, 50 paid members and 20 premium members, now each figure is 120 times greater.

Hi Karishma,

I disagree with the assertion that "Their numbers" means numbers belonging to "Digital mental health industry". Referring to the Digital mental health industry with the pronoun "their" makes no sense. The sentence is clearly attempting to convey that the aggregate number of applications is now 120 fold more than what it was at the start of the pandemic; I also believe that none of these answer choices actually conveys this meaning. Try as I might, I can't justify the use of "their numbers" to refer to the aggregate number of apps.

The closest I can get is that "their numbers" is a substitute for "the applications' numbers" but that is still not ideal.

can we use pronoun "their" with singular digital mental health industry?

First split - Greater than vs More than
With numbers, we use greater than. SO, we can eliminate options B, D & E

Between Options A & C; the comparison is between the time - now vs when the corona pandemic struck. Opt C correctly puts out the comparison and is the correct answer.

egmat

What is their referring to in the sentence and why is A wrong??

why semi colon can be used, since second sentence is not independent

When you are comparing actual numbers use Greater than.
eliminate B D E

A has modifier isuue

answer is C

A. applications, now with numbers 120 times greater than​
Since these are independent clause a semi colon will better provide the right meaning and now isn't the right usage since it doesn't to what it's pointing

B. applications, now with 120 times more the numbers than​​
Similar reasoning as A and in addition in precise numbers are given greater than is used since we say 4 is greater than 3 not more than 3

C. applications; their numbers are now 120 times greater than ​
This irons out the above stated errors and the right usage with greater than

D. applications; their numbers are now 120 times more than​​
Similar reasoning as B

E. applications, their numbers now 120 times more than what they were
Similar flaws as A and B combined
Therefore IMO C

what is "their" referring to in this sentence as "Digital mental health industry" is singular .

Hello parth009,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, here, "their" refers to "applications".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

I think option C correctly compares the time frame i.e. Numbers now to the numbers in 2020