399. In spite of federal subsidizing of public transportation systems massively and major local efforts to persuade the public to use public transportation, mass transit has been steadily losing patronage to the private automobile for the past thirty years.

(A) In spite of federal subsidizing of public transportation systems massively and major local efforts to persuade
(B) In spite of massive federal subsidizing of public transportation systems and major efforts locally at persuading
(C) Despite massive federal subsidies to public transportation systems and the making of major efforts locally to persuade
(D) Despite massive federal subsidies to public transportation systems and major local efforts to persuade
(E) Despite massive federal subsidies to public transportation systems and making major local efforts at persuading

Solution:

Parallelism + Awkwardness + Idioms

A: “subsidizing(verb)… efforts(noun)…” is not parallel.
B: “locally”(adverb) is incorrectly modifying “efforts”(noun).
C: “making of major efforts locally to” is awkward.
E: “making efforts at persuading” is not idiomatic. Awkward.
D: “major local efforts to persuade” is idiomatic. Hence, the best choice.

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