求问一题关于it 的指代！谢谢大家！

summerway

96.    (29547-!-item-!-188;#058&004302)  C

There are hopeful signs that we are shifting away from our heavy reliance on fossil fuels:  more than ten times as much energy is generated through wind power now than it was in 1990.

(A) generated through wind power now than it was
(B) generated through wind power now as it was
(C) generated through wind power now as was the case
(D) now generated through wind power as it was
(E) now generated through wind power than was the case

在B 和C 犹豫， B中的it指代的是什么内容， prep上说是指代energy generated by wind power，可是还是不理解， 难道不能指代 energy吗？ 理解为：as more energy is generated by wind power as energy was (generated) in 1990.

NN 们 帮帮忙吧!已经发好几个帖子了，一直木有人回。。。。

darkdoug

万事不决问google，下面摘自Manhattan论坛上Ron大神的解释： 'it' must refer to the ENTIRETY of the noun phrase serving as an antecedent. （URL:http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/there-are-hopeful-signs-that-t3322.html）

i could've sworn this problem was in another thread, but the search box won't find it.

there are two splits you should use to narrow down this problem:

(1) the second half of the construction 'ten times as much ... ____' is as, notthan. therefore, you can eliminate answers (a) and (e), which contain 'than'. (i'm assuming that (e) is supposed to say 'than', not 'then'; i don't think the gmat problems would that blatant an error)

(2) the pronoun 'it' is inappropriate, because 'it' must refer to the ENTIRETY of the noun phrase serving as an antecedent.
for instance, the following is an improper sentence: last year's attendance was ten thousand greater than it was this year
in the above sentence, the pronoun 'it' must necessarily refer to last year's attendance, not just attendance.
the problem in this post has the same issue: the pronoun 'it' must refer to more than ten times as much energy, not just energy - an interpretation that makes no logical sense. therefore, all answer choices containing the pronoun 'it' are wrong.

if you don't like '...than was the case', you should learn to like it; this is one of those phrases that the gmat writers use to refer to concepts that don't fit under the usage constraints of traditional pronouns. (another popular one of these constructions is 'do so'.)

summerway

非常感谢！加油加油！！

summerway

非常感谢！加油加油！！

wanglu0829

Thank you