Sentence Correction

According to the National Science Foundation, in 2003 there were 198,113 female science and engineering graduate students, almost 42% of the graduate students in those fields, twice as much as 1981.

1)twice as much as 1981
2)twice as many as 1981
3)double the figure for 1981
4)double what it was in 1981
5)a number double that of 1981's

Ho should I choose between 3 and 5?

Bests
Arash

arashyazdiha wrote:According to the National Science Foundation, in 2003 there were 198,113 female science and engineering graduate students, almost 42% of the graduate students in those fields, twice as much as 1981.

1)twice as much as 1981
2)twice as many as 1981
3)double the figure for 1981
4)double what it was in 1981
5)a number double that of 1981's

Ho should I choose between 3 and 5?

Bests
Arash

As the no. of students is countable, double takes preference! IMO:3

But, how you eliminate E?do you find anything wrong with that? Or did you eliminate it only because of its wordiness?

arashyazdiha wrote:But, how you eliminate E?do you find anything wrong with that? Or did you eliminate it only because of its wordiness?

Hi

5)a number double that of 1981[color=red]'s [/color]
the highlighted part made me to eliminate 5.

a number double that of 1981 would have been better!

Regards,
GK