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badpit: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 4; Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:32 pm

twice as much as

by badpit » Tue May 12, 2009 3:38 am

According to the Roper Global Diabetes Group, in 2007 the number of Americans living with diabetes was 16.6 million, a rise of 7 percent over the previous year and twice as much as 1997.

(A) twice as much as 1997
(B) twice as many as 1997
(C) a number double that of 1997's
(D) double what it was in 1997
(E) double the figure for 1997

OA E

I have several questions here. Does "twice as much as 1997" define "number", can we use much for "number", and if not, why many is still illegal?

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Tue May 12, 2009 3:38 am

hk: MBA Student; Posts: 532; Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:39 pm; Location: Barcelona; Thanked: 33 times; Followed by:9 members; GMAT Score:640

by hk » Tue May 12, 2009 8:12 am

Yes "many" should be used to refer to countable objects like "number of americans" but here Option B which uses many is wrong because it changes the meaning. It means "twice as many as 1997" - meaning 2x1997 americans is a 7% increase over 16million which make no sense.

E correctly states that the 16.6 million is a 7 percent increase over the previous year's figure (which should have been X where X = 16.6million x 100/107 )