og 250

250. The company announced that its profits declined much less in the second quarter than analysts had expected it to and its business will improve in the second half of the year.

(A) had expected it to and its business will improve

(B) had expected and that its business would improve

(C) expected it would and that it will improve its business

(D) expected them to and its business would improve（B）

(E) expected and that it will have improved its business

B, the best choice, In A and C, singular it after expected has no grammatical referent: its antecedent cannot be The company, but rather must be the plural profits. <为什么不能指代the company？>

请牛牛指教！

感觉通常只有说：expected it to be  /  expected it would be， 后面的be动词不能省，否则可以理解为：the profits是it的指代对象，或者直接说the analyst expected（全部省略）。

你放入句子再体会看看。

搭车问另一个问题：

这道题能不能根据expect的时态来排除CDE三项，因为这个expect应该在company announced之前，所以应该用过去完成时。是这样的吧？

因为ETS在解释中没有提到CDE三项的这个错误，所有有点不放心。能确认一下吗？

这句话能不能理解成：its profits declined much less in the second quarter than(its profits)analysts had expected

也就是说than后面省略的是比较中的主语its profits，所以c d e中的them or it显然是多余了

就像：You are much taller than (you) three years ago.

不知道我这样理解又没有问题，还请NN指正

请指教