The combination of experience, capital, and that the industry loyalists back them judiciously should ensure internet firms continuing to grow and perform competitively in European markets.

Experience, capital, and X are supposed to be parallel.
Whereas A, B, and E are not appropriately parallel.
Eliminate them.

Between C and D
C. judicious backing by industry loyalists should ensure that internet firms will continue (Correctly portray that the firms will continue to grow, not combination)

D. judicious backing by industry loyalist should ensure Internet firms that they will continue (they is ambiguous because of two antecedents. Combination or firms)
Eliminate D

Answer is C

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'And' is a parallelism trigger. A list is followed by 'The combination of'. Hence each item should be parallel.
Experience, capital are outside the underline. Therefore the third item needs to be a noun phrase.


1. 'that the industry..'. Here 'that' is subordinating a clause and cannot function as a noun phrase.
2. The verb 'ensure' is best used in the form 'ensure that + [clause]' or 'ensure + [the action/thing being ensured]'. 'ensure the continuation of' may have made more sense or 'ensure that...'.


1. 'the industry loyalists backing..' is a noun phrase and grammatically fine. Meaning is also okay. But '[noun] + [verb-ing form](or also called present participle, which plays the role of a modifier)' is a bad way to express the intended action of backing and puts the focus on the noun 'the industry' instead. This form is almost always stylistically wrong when the purpose is to talk about the whole action(and hence the clause) and not just the noun/subject.
2. of being about to continue - simply unreadable.


1. judicious(adjective) backing(gerund) is a noun phrase. 'backing' is simply a gerund - verb acting as a noun.
2. 'ensure that' construction is a good construction for the reason explained in option A pt 2.


1. judicious backing is fine for reason explained in option C pt 1.
2. Nobody is ensuring these internet firms of anything. It is being ensured that they will continue to grow.
3. 'they' can ambiguously refer to internet firms or loyalists, since both are plural.


1. 'industry loyalists to ..' is grammatically wrong. it definitely doesn't form a noun phrase.
2. 'ensure internet firms of' - Rejected for the same reason as option D pt2.

IMO option C is correct.

Answer C

Parallelism error in A ( X )
Pronoun error in B and D.
Wrong use of Verb is E.

The combination of experience, capital, and that the industry loyalists back them judiciously should ensure internet firms continuing to grow and perform competitively in European markets.

A. that the industry loyalists back them judiciously should ensure internet firms continuing -> Parallelism error for "experience, capital, and that the industry loyalists". Incorrect.

B. the industry loyalists backing them judiciously should ensure internet firms of being about to continue -> "being" is incorrect to use.

C. judicious backing by industry loyalists should ensure that internet firms will continue -> Parallelism error corrected and meaning wise, it is better too. Let's keep it.

D. judicious backing by industry loyalist should ensure Internet firms that they will continue -> "that" needs to be moved close to "ensure".

E. industry loyalists to back them judiciously should ensure Internet firms of continuing -> Incorrect, we need "judicious backing" after "and".

So, I think C.