sl750 wrote:Many analysts have recently predicted that democratic institutions will develop in China, as the growth of democracy has generally followed industrial development in other countries throughout the 20th century.
"¢ has generally followed industrial development
"¢ generally followed industrial development
"¢ had generally followed industrial development
"¢ generally follows industrial development
"¢ followed general industrial development

Source: Unknown

Mixed between [spoiler]A/B

A. It is continuing
B. Past[/spoiler]

which one is best?[spoiler][/spoiler]

I will go with A here. We need perfect tense here to indicate a trend.

Expert pls help
though +1 for A

OA is B

Tough SC but I answered correctly although my logic is rather questionable.

A) predicted that, just as the growth of democracy has generally followed industrial development in other nations, democratic institutions will soon flourish

"growth of democracy followed...." vs "democratic institutions ...flourish" => not parallel.

B) predicted, just as democracy has generally grown following other nations' industrial development, that democratic institutions will soon flourish

"democracy...grown" vs "democratic institutions...flourish" => ok

C) predicted, just as the growth of democracy generally following industrial development in other nations, that democratic institutions will soon be flourishing

"just as"..."that" is unidiomatic.
"the growth of...following" vs "democratic institutions ... be flourishing"

"just as" is used for comparing actions. In C, compared phrase is not complete S-V.

D) predicted that, just as democracy has generally grown after other nations' industrial development, that democratic institutions will soon be flourishing

"just as democracy ...grown" vs "that democratic institutions ...be flourishing" not parallel.

E) been predicting that, just as the general growth of democracy following other nations' industrial development, democratic institutions will soon flourish

We don't need to underline duration of predicting so Present Perfect Continuous is wrong.

"growth of democracy following" vs "democratic institutions ...flourish" - not parallel.

I chose E because "generally followed" sounded very awkward to my ears. Please explain why B is correct.

Even I accept that "generally followed" signifies that growth of democratic growth usually follows industrial development, then also I'd go with option A "has generally followed". I'd never be able to arrive at B. Please explain.

thanks in advance.

I chose B over A because :
In A, has generally followed shows the ongoing process. however, in the question we can see the author is talking about the countries in 20th century which means its in the past.Therefore generally followed.... (Past structure) is more favorable.