For the last five years the Dutch economy has grown faster

[tim]

Glad to hear it!

[RonPurewal]

Yes Ron , I understand . Thanks

sure.

[Simranjit.singh]

Hi ,
Please explain why option "C" is wrong.

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

C is non-parallel. it says "this economy grew faster than these countries".

[aflaamM589]

Is and vs or split relevant here?
Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Is and vs or split relevant here?
Thanks

"Britain, France, or Germany" is singular, so you can rule out choice B. beyond that, not much you can do there.

[Gui]

For the last five years the Dutch economy has grown faster than Britain, France, or Germany, with the unemployment rate having remained well below that of the other three countries.

A. Britain, France, or Germany, with the unemployment rate having remained
B. have those of Britain, France, or Germany, and the unemployment rate remaining
C. have Britain, France, and Germany, and the unemployment rate has remained
D. the economy of Britain, France, and Germany, with the unemployment rate that has remained
E. the economies of Britain, France, and Germany, and the unemployment rate has remained

OA is E.

Someone told me that "the economy of Britain, France, and Germany" is wrong because each of those 3 countries has its own economy, so it has to be "the economies of Britain, France, and Germany". Is such interpretation correct?

If yes, shouldn't "the unemployment rate has remained well below that of the other three countries" become "the unemployment rate has remained well below the unemployment rates of the other three countries" because those 3 countries have different rates?

I understand that it is an non-underlined portion. I just want to learn more from non-underlined portion.

Do you guys think that ETS didn't write this non-underlined portion correctly? Or is it a special usage that I am not aware of?

Thanks in advance.

Why B is wrong? Is the usage of present continuous wrong? "the unemployment rate remaining"

Many tks!

G

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Answer choice B is incorrect because of the word 'remaining'. However, it's not present continuous here; in fact, it doesn't have a tense at all. Any VERB-ing word is only has a tense if it's used after some form of the verb 'to be', such as these examples:
She is walking.
They were working.
He will be playing.
If you see a VERB-ing word
In answer choice B above, the word 'remaining' is actually a noun modifier. Here are some more examples of the same type of modifier:
The bird flying overhead is tiny.
We saw a dog running in the park.
The people waiting in the line were bored.
Check out the SC strategy guide for more on this type of modifier. However, in answer choice B the conjunction 'and' should be joining two complete clauses, each of which requires a tensed verb. The second clause doesn't have a tensed verb, making the answer choice incorrect.

[Gui]

Tks Sage! I'll take a look at the strategy guide.

Is there a difference between ‘a’ and ‘b’:

a) For the last five years the Dutch economy has grown faster than have those of Britain, France, or Germany…

b) For the last five years the Dutch economy has grown faster than the economies of Britain, France, and Germany…

Many tks!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I would say that both those sentences are fine because the meaning is clear - we're not going to get mixed up. However, with some comparisons we might get an ambiguous sentence. For example:
Stacey likes running more than Sage.
In this case we've got two possible meanings. We'd need to clarify this by writing one of the following:
Stacey likes running more than Sage does.
Stacey likes running more than she does Sage.