Quote:
A. In South Korea in the early 2000s, growth in the nation’s ten largest companies’ assets was fueled by the companies’ rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice as many as in 2002.
"They" really doesn't work very well here. Sure, we intuitively understand that "they" refers back to "companies"... except that "companies" is possessive in this sentence, and a non-possessive pronoun ("they") can't refer back to a possessive noun on the GMAT. At the very least, I've never seen a correct answer that does so -- and this could definitely be clearer. Eliminate (A).
Quote:
B. In South Korea, the nation’s ten largest companies’ asset growth was fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly double that of 2002.
"That" is used as a singular pronoun here, so we need to look for a singular noun that it could refer back to. I don't see a whole lot of options: "total", I guess? But that really doesn't make much sense. (
For more on the GMAT's many uses of "that", click here.)
Plus, we still have the same pronoun issue as in (A). Eliminate (B).
Quote:
C. In South Korea, the nation’s ten largest companies experienced rapid asset growth in the early 2000s, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice that of 2002.
"They" works a little bit better, but "that of" still doesn't make any sense. (C) is out.
Quote:
D. In the early 2000s, South Korea’s ten largest companies experienced rapid asset growth, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice as many as in 2002.
This looks fine! We're legitimately comparing the number of subsidiaries now, and the pronoun issues have been cleaned up. Keep (D).
Quote:
E. In the early 2000s, South Korea’s ten largest companies’ assets grew rapidly, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice the number they had in 2002.
The comparison at the end is incredibly wordy, and that's not necessarily the end of the world, but (D) is clearly better. Plus, we're back to the same pronoun issue as in (A) and (B). So (E) is gone, and (D) is the correct answer.
_________________
GMAT/GRE/EA tutors @
www.gmatninja.com (
hiring!) |
YouTube |
Articles |
IG Beginners' Guides:
RC |
CR |
SC |
Complete Resource Compilations:
RC |
CR |
SC YouTube LIVE webinars:
all videos by topic +
24-hour marathon for UkraineQuestion Explanation Collections:
RC |
CR |
SC