1. E

Notice that three choices contain the word amount and two choices contain number. People, because they can be counted, come in numbers rather than amounts. (E) is best because of the remaining two because the phrase an even greater amount of people clearly refers to more people, while a number of people even larger could be referring to bigger people.

2. D

(A) is awkwardly worded and the pronoun they has more than one possible antecedent. In (B) the two verbs linked by and aren't parallel; "were convicted" doesn't match "ranging." In choice (C), "the ranging of convictions" is awkward and unidiomatic. Choice (E) is wordy. (D) is the best choice.

3. B

Choices (A) and (D) are wrong because when should be used only to refer to a time, and where should be used only to refer to a place. Choices (C) and (E) are wordy and awkward.

4. D

In this sentence, the students want to do something (change careers); the proper idiom is hope to instead of hope for. So eliminate (A) and (B). The use of exchange for is incorrect in choice (C). In choice (E), something's missing; this version of the sentence doesn't specify what the "drab jobs" are being exchanged for. Choice (D) is correct.

5. D

The original has two mistakes. First, there's a problem with subject/verb agreement. It's also unclear what the word their refers to—public or UFOs. Logically, it would seem the reference is to the public, but public is singular; so we would have to use its, not their. Choice (B) is awkward. Choices (C), (D), and (E) change the sentence's structure so that the word belief becomes the only subject—now we need a singular verb. Only (D) contains the singular verb has.