A thought-provoking English multiple-choice question.

It’s all a mess! Several people upstairs were tested as nerds. B is correct Chinglish.

In fact, it is very simple to judge whether sentences with parallel comparative forms are right or wrong. Remember the first sentence is cause and the second sentence is effect. So when judging right or wrong, just remove the definite article at the beginning of the sentence, replace it with if...then, and then insert the comparative adjective or adverb back into the correct position in the sentence. If there is an omitted predicate, add it back. If you choose B for this sentence, the converted sentence is:

If the standard of living is higher and the national wealth is greater, then greater amount of paper is used.

This is correct. If you choose D, then the extra second the in the second sentence will cause trouble. The converted sentence is:

If the standard of living is higher and the national wealth is greater, then the greater amount of paper is used.

This is wrong. The comparative form cannot have a definite article.

In fact, the original poster has a very good sense of language. If Americans were to answer this question, I am afraid that more than half of them would answer D. This is because the person who asked the question never spoke English and came up with an answer that was grammatically correct but had a wrong sense of language. In English, when greater is used in parallel comparative sentences, the greater the amount of is basically used. This is just a convention and makes no sense. Although B is grammatically correct, no one said so. The real English is:

The higher the standard of living and the greater the national wealth, the greater the amount of paper used.

Another: I looked for this on the Internet The origin of the question. Found the original source here:

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As I said, B is wrong too. The correct answer is the greater the amount of paper used. This question was copied to China, and the person who copied it was so smart that he mistook the wrong answer for the right answer, making a chinglish joke.

I hope all students will not be ruined by the exam culture.