Confused over HAD

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Confused over HAD

by Optimus Prime » Thu Aug 26, 2010 7:04 am
1. In 1980 the United States exported twice as much of its national output of goods as they had in 1970.

(A) twice as much of its national output of goods as they had

(B) double the amount of their national output of goods as they did

(C) twice as much of its national output of goods as it did

(D) double the amount of its national output of goods as it has

(E) twice as much of their national output of goods as they had


OA C


Why is E incorrect?
Is it because of THEY? And is it wrong to use had they way it has been used in E? I feel like use of HAD is correct as it refers to an event in past that occured before the exports of 1980

Double usage:


In 1980 the United States exported double the amount of its national output of goods it did in 1970.

Is it correct?
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by skprocks » Thu Aug 26, 2010 7:13 am
Why is E incorrect?Is it because of THEY? And is it wrong to use had they way it has been used in E? I feel like use of HAD is correct as it refers to an event in past that occured before the exports of 1980
The United States is a singular,so all pronouns referring to it shall be singular.Use of they,their is not allowed.
Hope it helps.

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by neerajkumar1_1 » Thu Aug 26, 2010 7:36 am
Any option that ends with "they" cannot be used as United States is singular.

That leaves only 2 choices... C & D....

C is idiomatically correct...

Hence ans is C

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by reply2spg » Thu Aug 26, 2010 7:48 am
Very important thing is that if you are referring to country use singular pronoun. If you are referring to ppl of the country then use plural pronoun. Here United States is country, so you need singular pronoun. Therefore, eliminate A, B and E.

D is wrong because it uses 'has' at the end. However, non underlined part uses exported, so you must use did for the parallelism.

Therefore, C is correct here.
Optimus Prime wrote:1. In 1980 the United States exported twice as much of its national output of goods as they had in 1970.

(A) twice as much of its national output of goods as they had

(B) double the amount of their national output of goods as they did

(C) twice as much of its national output of goods as it did

(D) double the amount of its national output of goods as it has

(E) twice as much of their national output of goods as they had


OA C


Why is E incorrect?
Is it because of THEY? And is it wrong to use had they way it has been used in E? I feel like use of HAD is correct as it refers to an event in past that occured before the exports of 1980

Double usage:


In 1980 the United States exported double the amount of its national output of goods it did in 1970.

Is it correct?
Sudhanshu
(have lot of things to learn from all of you)

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