Question: In South Korea in the early 2000s, growth in the nation’s ten largest companies’ assets was fueled by the companies’ rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice as many as in 2002.

1. In South Korea in the early 2000s, growth in the nation’s ten largest companies’ assets was fueled by the companies’ rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice as many as in 2002.
2. In South Korea, the nation’s ten largest companies’ asset growth was fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly double that of 2002.
3. In South Korea, the nation’s ten largest companies experienced rapid asset growth in the early 2000s, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice that of 2002.
4. In the early 2000s, South Korea’s ten largest companies experienced rapid asset growth, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice as many as in 2002.
5. In the early 2000s, South Korea’s ten largest companies’ assets grew rapidly, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice the number they had in 2002.

Correct Answer: D
Explanation: The following arguments could be used to defend the suggested language change:

• Parallelism
• Considering two separate truths
• Modifiers

In the early 2000s, South Korea’s ten largest companies experienced rapid asset growth. Fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice as many as in 2002.- Correct. We're legitimately comparing the number of subsidiaries now. The pronoun issues have been cleaned up. "they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice the number they had in 2002" - Correctly compares the number of subsidiaries in 2011 to the number of subsidiaries in 2002. they' and 'their' refer back to the ten largest companies. 'twice as many as in 2002' correctly compares the subsidiaries in 2002 Vs. the subsidiaries in 2011.

Let’s see the other available options.

Option A
In South Korea in the early 2000s, growth in the nation’s ten largest companies’ assets was fueled by the companies’ rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice as many as in 2002.- Incorrect. Unidiomatic. Growth of the assets is the correct idiom. they' has no antecedent as' companies' is a possessive noun so it cannot refer to companies.

Option B
In South Korea, the nation’s ten largest companies’ asset growth was fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly double that of 2002.- Incorrect. Double is not used when there is a comparison. “Twice” needs to be used. "That" is used as a singular pronoun here, so we need to look for a singular noun that it could refer back to.

Option C
In South Korea, the nation’s ten largest companies experienced rapid asset growth in the early 2000s, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice that of 2002.- Incorrect. "They" works a little bit better, but "that of" still doesn't make any sense. Twice that is wrong in this context.

Option E
In the early 2000s, South Korea’s ten largest companies’ assets grew rapidly, fueled by their rapid expansion into new lines of business: they had a total of 592 subsidiaries in 2011, nearly twice the number they had in 2002.- Incorrect. The comparison at the end is incredibly wordy, and that's not necessarily the end of the world. Plus, we're back to the same pronoun issue as in (A) and (B). So (E) is gone, and (D) is the correct answer. The adverb "rapidly" and adjective "rapid" could have been avoided. They are redundant.

“In South Korea in the early 2000s, growth in the nation’s ten largest”- is a GMAT sentence correction question. These sorts of questions come up with grammatical errors in the underlined part of the sentence. The candidates need to select the correct statement given in the options. The GMAT sentence correction section demands good skills in grammar since the candidate has to identify common grammatical errors. GMAT sentence correction is a part of GMAT verbal.

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