E：关于“will have verb"-------You’re not going to see this very often on the GMAT – and it’s rarely a deciding factor when it does appear – but the phrase “will have + verb” suggests an action that will occur in the future, but before some “time marker” later in the future. For example, you could say “By the time my wife gives birth, I will have spent nine months in utter terror at the prospect of becoming a parent.” The phrase “will have spent” is in the future – but it occurs BEFORE the other future action (my wife giving birth). And in (E), there’s no reason to use that tense: “will have improved in the second quarter”… before what, exactly? The simpler, conditional “would” makes more sense.

C："it"代词错误，对应前面profits应用复数。排除AC
B：“business will improve” – correctly imply that revenue will improve.
D：It’s not clear whether “its business would improve” is parallel to “analysts expected them to” or “its profits declined…” – both are clauses, so either would be structurally parallel, and that’s confusing.

its profits declined much less in the second quarter than analysts had expected
还原成its profits declined much less in the second quarter than its profits declined as analysts had expected
D选项=its profits declined much less in the second quarter than analysts had expected its profits to decline，

D为什么不对

had expect强调declined之前的时间。
C的 第一个it是致命错。
something declined less than analyst expected 是个错误的平行
something declined less than analyst (had) expected ((that) they would declined) <-可以省略

不懂，为什么要用had expected？

this situation -- a state that is ongoing only until another past event, and which is directly related to that past event -- is precisely the kind of situation that requires the past perfect tense, so the sentence should contain "had expected", as in the first two choices. 另外c里it指代错误= profits

纠结BC
c用了现在时，和主句announced跨时态，而且没有明显的客观事实标志
另外c错在it指代，前面的profits是复数

business 可以improve

想问一下大家有没有听过这样一个语法规则（ 因为我模模糊糊总有印象），that连接两个不同内容的宾语从句，第二个that是绝对不可以省略的？

From Ron:
he only one of those pronouns that's incorrect is the "it" in choice (c).
in that choice, the context of the pronoun clearly refers to the company's profits; however, "profits" is plural, while "it" is singular.

company announced 两件事情，因此应该用两个that宾语从句连接起来

had expected it to and （没有that） its business will improve

business 可以自己improve吗？难道不是被improve吗？

时态，分析家预测的行为发生在利润下降前（否则就不需要预测了），因为利润下降用过去时，预测行为是过去的过去要用过去完成时，所以排除CDE。The company announced that its profits declined...and that its business would improve， 平行结构，且时态一致。

b是最优答案，平行结构that从句，its business可以improve，profits只能rise

a it逻辑主语是profits，应该是复数，c，d. e应该是完成时