IMO: D.

Doubling is not clear, makes the sentence awkward.

Much can not be used with number of people. Also "in 1990" & "in previous year" parallel.

D works the best in this.

What is the OA?

Regards

so in this case, it looks like doubling was supposed to modify "increase".. i got tricked and tried to find something that could modify the countable "number of people", hence why I thought the answer was D. Is this thinking correct? Is this why we can't use TWICE with increase (bc increase is not countable?)

Yes. Twice is used for comparison.

queenisabella wrote:so in this case, it looks like doubling was supposed to modify "increase".. i got tricked and tried to find something that could modify the countable "number of people", hence why I thought the answer was D. Is this thinking correct? Is this why we can't use TWICE with increase (bc increase is not countable?)

"doubling ...." is a participle modifier, providing us the adverb of result.

"Doubling" doesnt modify "the increase" - the increase is the object of the infinite verb "doubling", a participle.

The major problem In D and E :

"twice..." refer to 1990.

Hope this helps !!

The main thing in this sentence is that it does not test idioms or comparisons. It is testing the modifiers...

The number of people flying first class on domestic flights rose sharply in 1990, doubling the increase of the previous year.

A) doubling the increase of
B) doubling that of the increase in
C) double as much as the increase of
D) twice as many as the increase in
E) twice as many as the increase of


the subject of the sentence is 'the number of people' and not the rise of 1990. If the rise was the subject then it would be a comparison sentence and option C would have been the right sentence. ie the rise was double as much as the increase of... The rise and the increase are compared and both are singular and so as many as would be wrong, and as much as would be preferred...

Twice also does not go with the 'rise' and 'increase'. Twice goes with the countable nouns...

Hence even if it was a comparison sentence, options D and E were out...

Hence the confusion would have been between A and C...

This is strictly a modifier question where in the subject has risen to something something...


Hope this helps...

Here we need to see the increase in the previous year. Hence D seems correct.

twice..As Many As...increase in the previous year.

Here twice...as many as... in the previous year alter the meaning.

Can anyone post the correct answer?

A) doubling the increase of
CORRECT

B) doubling that of the increase in
No antecedent for "that" - INCORRECT

C) double as much as the increase of
"double as much as" - INCORRECT, you cannot use this kind of construction. We need "twice" in such cases

D) twice as many as the increase in
E) twice as many as the increase of
"twice" modifies a quantity just before comma - INCORRECT