Traffic safety officials predict that drivers will be equally likely

Traffic safety officials predict that drivers will be equally likely to exceed the proposed speed limit as the current one.

(A) equally likely to exceed the proposed speed limit as
(B) equally likely to exceed the proposed speed limit as they are
(C) equally likely that they will exceed the proposed speed limit as
(D) as likely that they will exceed the proposed speed limit as
(E) as likely to exceed the proposed speed limit as they are


1. The intended sentence is-- Traffic safety officials predict that drivers will be as likely to exceed the proposed speed limit as they are (likely to exceed) the current one. We may note the ellipsis here in full action for the sake of concision. Therefore, the Answer choice E is indeed complete.


2.The first step is to eliminate all the choices that miss the action verb in the second part, namely, ‘are’. Missing the verbal word will render the comparison wrong by treating the proposed speed itself as the current one. Then the essence of proposed loses relevance. Hence A, C and E can be dumped.
Now comes the idiom ‘as X as Y’ into play, wherein ‘as…. As’ is an essential ingredient. Hence, -will be equally likely to do x as they are Y -- is unidiomatic. As likely to do x as they are Y is the correct idiom. Therefore E.