问一道OG SC 题

问一道OG SC 题

251. The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970's. .

(A)  extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than

(B)  extinction; its numbers are now five times more than

(C)  extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were

(D)  extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had

(E)   extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

answer 是A. 不过 its numbers 对吗?

不应该是 its number 吗?

这里不是 SC 专区吗?

我看只有语法,阅读,逻辑 和写作区 ,没有专门写SC 专区啊?

back to the question.

numbers, 当数量讲, 可数?

为何不用 its number is ...

its meaning this specie of bird.  And of course there are more than one bird in this specie.  So therefore they used its numbers.  We know for sure it is greater than 1 because the number is five times greater than before.  So unless the number before is 0 ( 0*5=0 ), we know it should be plural.  

but , as for numbers, the quantity of an object, should be uncountable,
why add -s suffix?

even if the number is more than 1, we can say, the number of the bird is 5. rather than " the numbers of the bird are 5"

am i correct? while, i'm confused.

我觉得是这么分析的吧

its numbers强调的是数目，或者个体

its number　强调的是整体

the number of the birds 是 its number

但 every bird 是 numbers，或者说 its numbers可以翻成“它的成员”，而its number只能翻译成“它的数目”

这个题出现的都是numbers，这是其一。

另外，按照不改变原句的涵义的话，如果numbers没有问题，就没有必要改成number

如果这么说如果A改成

  extinction; its number is now five times greater than

也对哪?