OG 12 - 16

[vineetbatra]

Retail sales rose 0.8 of 1 percent in August,intensifying expectations that personal spending in the July-September quarter more than doubled that of the 1.4 percent growth rate in personal spending for the previous quarter.

(A) that personal spending in the July-September quarter more than doubled that of

(B) that personal spending in the July-September quarter would more than double

(C) of personal spending in the July-September quarter, that it more than doubled

(D) of personal spending in the July-Septemberquarter more than doubling that of

(E) of personal spending in the July-September quarter, that it would more than double that of

In B i find one problem.

the sentence says "that personal spending in the July-September quarter would more than double"

here the comparison is between personal spending and the 1.4 percent growth rate. This seems incorrect to me.

Also in E is the usage of it correct. The OG does not mention anything about it.

[frank1]

Considering all the factor i will still go with B
(B seems better than other,even tense seems ok)

[arpita@gurome]

Since the sentence talks of an expectation and indicates a projected figure, "would more than double" is the correct usage. Note that the comparison is not between "personal spending" and 1.4 percent growth rate. Personal spending in the July-Sept quarter is still being compared with the personal spending in the previous quarter.

The usage of "it" in (E), as your rightly mention, is incorrect. The additional clause "that it would more than double", makes the sentence awkward.

[frank1]

in one question similar to this...i think they tricked me...
as i opted for ....ing parallelism (if that was true answer would have been D lo)
intensifying ....doubling

but we have different main verb so ....

any way gets tricky sometime....

[vineetbatra]

Thanks for the response Arpita, but I am still confused how personal spending in the July-September quarter compare with the personal spending of previous quarter

here the sentence says "x (Personal spending) in A (the July-September quarter) - would more than Double y (1.4 % growth rate) in B (personal spending for the previous quarter).

The parallelism seems all whacky...

Vineet