Sentence Correction

10. A large rise in the number of housing starts in the coming year should boost new construction dollars by several billion dollars, making the construction industry’s economic health much more robust than five years ago.
(A) making the construction industry’s economic health much more robust than five years ago
(B) and make the construction industry’s economic health much more robust than five years ago
(C) making the construction industry’s economic health much more robust than it was five years ago
(D) to make the construction industry’s economic health much more robust than five years ago
(E) in making the construction industry’s economic health much more robust than it as five years ago



IMO [spoiler]B
OA C[/spoiler]

Hope I am not way off here...

A comma followed by a conjuction like "and" is usually used to:

1) To join 2 independent clauses
2) When a dependent clause or phrase comes before an independent clause.

In this sentence "and" is not needed since making the construction industry’s economic health much more robust than five years ago is not an independent clause

Between A and C

C adds the word "it" whose antecedent is economic health making it clear

IMO the OA should be ok

I agree with crmaya's explaination.Taking the discussion a bit further:

Between A & C its a case of oranges and peaches as A incorrectly compares economic health to 5 years wheres C corrects this mistake by using 'it' and hence the comparison is between present economic health and the econmic health 5 years ago.

Thanks a lot Cramya