V11-08

Official Solution:

In 2007, Statkraft, a Norwegian state-owned electricity company, was the third largest energy producer in the Nordic region, producing 22.7 kWH of energy of which majority was Hydroelectric produced in 133 plants in Norway, 12 in Sweden and 4 in Finland and, including the subsidiaries Skagerak Energi and Trondheim Energi, which had 2100 employees.

A. In 2007, Statkraft, a Norwegian state-owned electricity company, was the third largest energy producer in the Nordic region, producing
B. In 2007, Statkraft, a Norwegian state-owned electricity company, was the third largest energy producer in the Nordic region, which produced
C. The third largest energy producer in the Nordic region in 2007 was Statkraft, a Norwegian state-owned electricity company, producing
D. In 2007, the third largest energy producer in the Nordic region was Statkraft, a Norwegian state-owned electricity company, which produced
E. Statkraft, a Norwegian state-owned electricity company, was the third largest energy producer in the Nordic region in 2007, produced


The basic structure of the correct option is as follows:

The largest energy producer in the Nordic region was Starkraft, which produced 22.7 kWH of energy and which had 2100 employees.

Following are the main components of the structure:

As explained the above, two dependent clauses 2a and 2b are joined by the conjunction “and”.

The other components of the sentence are:

In 2007, the third largest energy producer in the Nordic region was Statkraft, a Norwegian state-owned electricity company, which produced 22.7 kWH of energy of which majority was Hydroelectric produced in 133 plants in Norway, 12 in Sweden and 4 in Finland and, including the subsidiaries Skagerak Energi and Trondheim Energi, which had 2100 employees.

Part of main clause 1:

“In 2007”: prepositional phrase modifying the main verb “was”.

“a Norwegian state-owned electricity company”: Noun phrase modifying “Statkraft”.

Part of subordinate clause 2a:

“of which majority was Hydroelectric produced in 133 plants in Norway, 12 in Sweden and 4 in Finland”: A nested relative clause modifier referring to “energy” Part of subordinate clause 2b:

“including the subsidiaries Skagerak Energi and Trondheim Energi”: a present participle modifier referring to the subject of clause 2b “which”. The construction is same as:

Including the subsidiaries X and Y, Z had 2100 employees.

Now we examine the options individually as follows:

A. The participle “producing” and the relative clause “which had…” are joined by the conjunction “and”, violating the parallelism. Questions may arise that “producing” is parallel with “ including”, but so is not the case. The participle “including the subsidiaries Skagerak Energi and Trondheim Energi” is set off within commas depicting that it is not the second item in the construction X AND Y. If it had been, then the comma after “and” would not be there.

B. The antecedent for the relative pronoun “which” is ambiguous. The first “which” touches the noun “Nordic region” and wrongly modifies “Nordic region”. This construction implies that the second “which”, which is parallel to the first “which” also modifies “Nordic region”, making the sentence meaningless. “Nordic region” cannot have subsidiaries.

C. Wrong because of the same reason as described in option A.

D. CORRECT: the two facts are correctly presented using two parallel relative clauses introduced by which (“which produced” and “which had”).

E. This construction results in a sentence fragment (underlined in the following text) at the end of the sentence:

Statkraft was …, produced….. and which had….


Answer: D