QUESTION
In three years–from 1999 to 2001–several million shares of stock were sold by the auto industry to finance twenty new factories, eighty pension funds, and some tens of thousands of new car purchases.
ANSWER SELECTION
ANSWER EXPLANATION
The underlined portion of the sentence is part of a list, so make sure the list items are all parallel – that is, in the same grammatical form. The non-underlined portion, which you can’t change, has “[number] of new car purchases.” Therefore, the other list items must be in the form [number] of [some items]. The phrases “twenty new factories” and “eighty pension funds” are parallel and correct. The other part worth examining is the initial “to finance”; it is correct to say “shares … were sold … to finance [lots of things].” Suspect that (A) is the correct answer, but check the other choices to make sure.
The answer choices begin in various ways, but a scan of the ends reveals a 3-2 split between “and some” in (A), (B), and (C) and just “and” in (D) and (E). This is a good place to start eliminating choices. The word “some” as used in the original sentence means “approximately,” and omitting it changes the meaning of the sentence, so (D) and (E) are incorrect.
In (B) and (C), the phrases “in order that they might finance” and “so as they might finance,” respectively, are unidiomatic. Correct wording would be in order to finance and so as to finance, but even this would be wordy compared to the original. Thus, (B) and (C) are incorrect. Note that (D) and (E) also begin in a very wordy, awkward manner.
(A) contains no errors and is the most succinct choice. Hence, it is the correct answer.
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