Sentence Correction

A small team of Croatian spelunkers recently discovered the world's deepest known hole, a 1693-foot pit that is over 200 feet as deep as the previous record-holder.

A)as deep as the
B)as deep as the supposed
C)as deep as any
D)deeper than any
E)deeper than the

Why D is wrong? What about the usage of 'supposed' in B?

vishalwin wrote:Why D is wrong? What about the usage of 'supposed' in B?

There is nothing really wrong with D other than the fact that the deepest previous record holder is the immediately previous record holder and is the only previous record holder that matters. So there is no reason to say "any previous record holder" as only one of the previous record holders is really being compared with the 1693 foot pit, and that is the immediately previous record holder, which also could be described as "the previous record holder".

In B the use of supposed does not make sense as what seems to be being discussed here is a comparison between the 1693 foot pit and the actual previous record holder rather than any supposed but not actual record holder.