In 1914 a total of 469,000 cars and trucks were produced in the United

The comparison in the context is between a total that is 469, 000 for both X and Y in 1914 and a number that is 2x469000 for x alone in 1929. The intention of the comparison is to establish that the truck production alone exploded enormously between the two time references. The mission is amply achieved in B, when we refer to 469,000 of 1914 as that number that had doubled to 938000 in 1929 for truck production alone.

The sentence is not making any good sense at all. What is the source of this question? Or is there any typo. 'themselves' or 'alone' sounds terrible.

Anyways, only B is best among the worst.

'that' refers to the preivous number of 469k rightly. Without the relative pronoun 'that' the sentence lack the element of 'to what extent or to what degree'.

I chose B because I felt the need for 'that'.

So, if I had to calculate the question mathematically, I would calculate the number of trucks in 1929 as (2 * X) and 'that' in B helps me tells what the number X is i.e 429 K.

Between A and B the difference is subject-verb agreement in the non-underlined portion?

hi
the numberS of.....is always incorrect for GMAT..
always use the number of....and this is always singular
a number of .....is always plural

hope it helps

I think it helps to first figure out what the sentence is really trying to convey...

The sentence tells us that In 1914 a total of 469,000 cars and trucks were produced in the United States,
but in 1929 almost twice that number of trucks alone came off the assembly lines.

I think we need a relative pronoun to refer to the number in 1949.
Answer choices :
A. the numbers of tucks alone : 'twice the numbers of' is incorrect.
B. that number of trucks alone : Correct
C. the number of trucks by themselves : the trucks themselves did not come out of the assembly line.
D. as many trucks themselves :the trucks themselves did not come out of the assembly line
E. as many trucks by themselves :the trucks themselves did not come out of the assembly line

Cheers

In 1914 a total of 469,000 cars and trucks were produced in the United States, but in 1929 almost twice the numbers of tucks alone came off the assembly lines.

The correct idiom is "as many as"
D and E out

A) the numbers of trucks alone
WRONG :- twice of what number ?? we need a digit or a reference to a digit.

B) that number of trucks alone
CORRECT:- twice that number of truck alone ; twice of 4696000.

C) the number of trucks by themselves
WRONG:- "alone" , "by themselves" is redundant. Both means the same thing.

D) as many trucks themselves
WRONG IDIOM

E) as many trucks by themselves
WRONG IDIOM

in 1914 -- 469,000 cars plus trucks
in 1929 -- twice of 469,000 trucks alone

A. the numbers of tucks alone
twice the numbers --- which numbers?? we don't know.

B. that number of trucks alone
twice that number -- here that number refers to 469,000

C. the number of trucks by themselves
twice the number -- which number?
what themselves is used here for? we don't know.

D. as many trucks themselves
as many as sets the comparison. only one "as" is used. another "as" is missing.

E. as many trucks by themselves
same as D.

In 1914 a total of 469,000 cars and trucks were produced in the United States, but in 1929 almost twice the numbers of tucks alone came off the assembly lines.

A. the numbers of trucks alone
B. that number of trucks alone

Between the numbers of trucks and the number of trucks:

You have some x number in 1914, and the then you have twice that number in 1929. The 1929 number has to be a definite and particular number. If we call it numbers, then we are implying that the number, in fact, could be many numbers such x, y, or z and so on. This is absurd. After all twice x is also one number as one can see.

That is the reason that A is out.

A. "the numbers of" - we do not know what this refers to. Moreover, we have only one number - 469,000. "numbers" is incorrect.

B. Best Choice. 'that' refers to the number 469,000.

C. The meaning is distorted. It means that the trucks came off the assembly lines by themselves. We do not know what "the number" refers to.

D. "trucks themselves" - "themselves" is an intensive pronoun. (for example - the king himself cooked dinner. Here, "himself" adds emphasis to the noun "king"). This usage is incorrect as there is no need to emphasize anything.

E. The meaning is distorted. It means that the trucks came off the assembly lines by themselves.

Hope this helps!

Might be a very silly question , but if we go very literal, doesn't the introduction of "that" creates an ambiguity ? 2 x 1929 or 2 x 469,000 ?

The sentence says "that number".

Logically speaking, 469,000 is the only number in the sentence; both 1914 and 1929 refer to years.

Hello Namangupta1997,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, here "that" is part of the pronoun phrase "that number", so it cannot refer to "1929", since in this context "1929" is a year, not a numerical value.

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

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.