comparisons

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comparisons

by RuchiDureja » Tue Sep 28, 2010 1:18 am
The company announced that its profits declined much less in the second quarter than analysts had
expected it to and its business will improve in the second half of the year.
(A) had expected it to and its business will improve
(B) had expected and that its business would improve
(C) expected it would and that it will improve its business
(D) expected them to and its business would improve
(E) expected and that it will have improved its business

Hi

Can any one clarify why "Them to" after "Expected" in option D is incorrect. When we read about comparisons in GMAT, don't they say that we should not compare apple to oranges. Here we are comparing actual decline in profits to analysts expectation. I think "Them to" makes it explicit that we are comparing actual decline to expected decline.

Correct Answer is B.

Thanks for all help.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by uwhusky » Tue Sep 28, 2010 1:25 am
Keep in mind that "company" is singular, thus "them" is incorrect.

Personally I would approach this as a parallelism question:

Company announced that X...and that Y.

And also as a tense question:

Profit "declined" less than analysts "had expected."

Plus I think in general, GMAT doesn't like to end clause in a preposition, expected them "to".
Yep.

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