[quote="td"]Retail sales rose 8/10 of 1 percent in August, intensifying expectations that personal spending in the July-September quarter more than doubled that of the 1.4 percent growth rate in personal spending for the previous quarter.


(A) that personal spending in the July-September quarter more than doubled that of

(B) that personal spending in the July-September quarter would more than double

(C) of personal spending in the July-September quarter, that it more than doubled

(D) of personal spending in the July-September quarter more than doubling that of

(E) of personal spending in the July-September quarter, that it would more than double that of

This question tests the concept of Modifiers, Comparisons and Pronouns.
When we do a vertical scan of the options, we see that Options A and B begin with the relative pronoun ‘that’ and Options C, D, and E begin with the preposition ‘of’.

There is also a comparison in the sentence between the growth rate of personal spending in July-September and the growth rate of personal spending for the previous quarter.

Let us examine the options.
In Option A, there is a pronoun that can only refer to ‘personal spending’, implying that the comparison is between the growth rate of personal spending in July-September and the personal spending of the growth rate of personal spending for the previous quarter.
That just makes it an extremely confusing sentence with no logic at all. There is also a tense error in Option A. The sentence mentions expectations, which are conveyed in the underlined portion of the sentence. But the tense used in the underlined portion is the simple past – doubled. The past tense implies that the action is over but the word ‘expectations’ implies an action that is yet to happen. There is a mismatch between the meaning that is conveyed and the intended meaning. So, Option A can be eliminated.

Options C, D, and E begin with the phrase ‘of personal spending’. “Expectations of personal spending” is not graceful usage. There are also more concrete reasons to rule out these options.
The relative pronoun ‘that’ has been used in Option C. As it is not clear what the pronoun is referring to, the pronoun is ambiguous. To make matters worse, the relative pronoun is followed by another pronoun ‘it’. This increases the ambiguity in the sentence. So, Option C can also be eliminated.

Options D and E repeat the error in Option A. With the use of the pronoun ‘that’ in both the options, the comparison is again illogical. So, Options D and E can also be eliminated.

Option B correctly uses a noun modifier beginning with the relative pronoun ‘that’ to state what the expectations are and also makes the accurate comparison.

Therefore, B is the most appropriate option.

Jayanthi Kumar.
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Retail sales rose 8/10 of 1 percent in August, intensifying expectations that personal spending in the July-September quarter more than doubled that of the 1.4 percent growth rate in personal spending for the previous quarter.


(A) that personal spending in the July-September quarter more than doubled that of

It's not particularly clear what the demonstrative pronoun 'that of' is doing in this sentence. Out.

(B) that personal spending in the July-September quarter would more than double CORRECT

(C) of personal spending in the July-September quarter, that it more than doubled

'expectations that' is correct in the context of this sentence...'expectations of' is not fundamentally wrong always (e.g. I have great expectations of him), however.

(D) of personal spending in the July-September quarter more than doubling that of

(E) of personal spending in the July-September quarter, that it would more than double that of
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