The People's Republic of China, having 1.3 billion people

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



MAGOOSH OFFICIAL SOLUTION



First, let’s look at the larger sentence, ignoring the clause in the middle for a moment.

• Split #1: Main Verb

The subject is the People’s Republic of China.

This subject needs a verb.
Choice (A) commits the famous missing verb mistake: it has a participle [a verbED], considered, rather than a full verb.
Choice (A) is wrong.

Option (B)'s original would have been considered suggests either a hypothetical or a time period gone by but in both cases is missing its other part—an IF clause or a time frame.
Suppose we are talking about a Type 3 conditional (an impossible condition in the past and its probable result).
If THIS thing had happened, then THAT thing would have happened.
If __________________, then China would have been considered a superpower.
Whoops. There's a missing IF clause.

Suppose we are talking about a time in the past. Okay. When?
→ In Hitler's Germany from 1933 to 1945, anti-fascist political activism would have been considered a mortal threat.
In English, the phrasing of the verb "often would have been" implies more context.
A native ear expects to hear "the rest" of the context of the verb.
"The rest" is not forthcoming in option B.
Choice (B) is incorrect

• Split #2: Subject/Verb Agreement

Of course, there are many people in China, but China is a singular collective noun and requires a singular verb.
Choice (E) uses the plural verb have been considered—this is a subject/verb agreement error.
Choice (E) is incorrect.

• Split #3: Idiom
In Choice (B), considered as is not idiomatic.
Consider X, Y is preferred.
Consider X to be Y is acceptable but rare.
Consider X as Y is always incorrect.

• Split #4: Construction
Now, we’re down to just (C) & (D).
Choice (D) has an odd, clumsy structure:
[noun][noun modifier]and[independent clause],[verb]

This is not a correct structure.
We can’t have a full independent clause come between a subject and a verb.
Choice (D) is incorrect.

The only possible choice is (C).

COMMENTS

The original option B contained a typo.
The original option B should have said, ". . . . often would have been considered AS."
The corrected version does so.
Considered AS is not idiomatic.

Even without the AS, the verb phrasing in option B is a bit off, as I explained above.

Explanations below are quite good.
Keep up the hard work.