The correct answer is E.

A booming population center, the Asian continent is home to over 3.5 billion people, about equivalent to the residents of all the other areas of the world combined.
A)equivalent to the residents of
B)the equivalent of those residing in
C)equal to those who reside in
D)as many as the residents of
E)as many as reside in

IMO E . The comparison is between the number of people in Asian continent to number of people in other areas in world .

as many as --- is correct in this case .

Hi AIMGMAT,

I am confused with C option.............can you please explain why C is wrong because i was able to eliminate answer choices A,B and D easily but got stuck between C and E

aspirant2011 wrote:Hi AIMGMAT,

I am confused with C option.............can you please explain why C is wrong because i was able to eliminate answer choices A,B and D easily but got stuck between C and E

C seems an incorrect comparison , it compares 3.5 billion people to those who reside in .... number cannot be compared to people.

Hope that helps.

yup got it, thanks a lot