Many analysts have recently predicted that democratic institutions wil

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

The non-underlined portion of the sentence utilizes the present perfect tense “have . .. predicted” to indicate that the analysts have and continue to predict the development of democratic institutions in China. In the original sentence, the present perfect tense is also utilized in “has . . . followed” to describe the pattern of democracy following industrial development. However, the sentence clearly refers to the past with the phrase “throughout the 20th century,” making the use of the present perfect tense incorrect, as the activity cannot be continuing if it occurred in the past and ended at the end of the 20th century.


(A) This choice is incorrect as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) CORRECT. This choice correctly uses the simple past tense in reference to the pattern of democracy following industrial development in the 20th century, and is otherwise clear and concise.

(C) This choice utilizes the past perfect construction “had . . . followed.” This is incorrect, as the past perfect tense requires that another action occurred in the later past, as noted by the use of the simple past tense. There is no such later past action in the original sentence.

(D) The simple present tense “follows” is incorrect in reference to a pattern that occurred “throughout the 20th century,” which is in the past.

(E) This choice correctly uses the simple past tense form of the verb. However, here “general” is incorrectly used to modify “industrial development” as opposed to being used to describe the pattern of democracy following industrial development; moreover, the meaning of “general industrial development” is unclear.