According to projections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the global economy was expected to grow at what approximate rate in the year 2017?

Introduction / Context:
International organisations such as the International Monetary Fund regularly publish forecasts of global economic growth in their World Economic Outlook reports. These projections are widely used by governments, businesses, and researchers for planning and analysis. Many competitive examinations include specific questions about such headline numbers. This question asks you to recall the IMF projection for global economic growth in 2017.

Given Data / Assumptions:
- The question refers to IMF projections for global economic growth for the year 2017.
- It presents four possible percentage values: 5.5 percent, 4.5 percent, 3.5 percent, and 2.5 percent.
- We assume the standard IMF World Economic Outlook forecast made in 2017.
- The answer requires approximate recall of the projected growth rate, not an exact decimal expansion.

Concept / Approach:
The IMF uses large data sets and macroeconomic models to forecast world output growth. For 2017, the IMF's World Economic Outlook projected global growth to strengthen from the previous year and converge around the mid three percent range. In exam oriented general knowledge, the key figure to remember is that the IMF projected global growth at about 3.5 percent for 2017, up from roughly 3.1 percent in 2016. Options that are much higher or much lower are meant to test whether you have a rough sense of the scale of global growth rates.

Step by Step Solution:
Step 1: Recall that in the years immediately before 2017, world growth hovered around the low to mid three percent range, not above five percent or below two percent. Step 2: Among the options, 3.5 percent stands out as a realistic figure consistent with IMF projections for that period. Step 3: Option A, 5.5 percent, is too high for global growth in that decade and is more typical of the growth of a few fast growing emerging economies, not the world as a whole. Step 4: Option D, 2.5 percent, is on the low side compared with the IMF's statement that growth was expected to pick up relative to the previous year. Step 5: Option C, 3.5 percent, matches the IMF projection that world growth would rise to 3.5 percent in 2017, so this is the correct choice.

Verification / Alternative check:
If you refer to summaries of the IMF World Economic Outlook for 2017, they state that global growth was expected to increase from about 3.1 percent in 2016 to around 3.5 percent in 2017. Analysts at the time described this as a modest recovery, not a boom. This confirms that the correct approximate figure is 3.5 percent. The other options either overstate or understate the IMF's forecast and are included to test whether you can distinguish realistic numbers from unrealistic ones.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Option A is wrong because a 5.5 percent global growth rate would have been exceptionally high and was not the IMF projection for 2017.
Option B is wrong because 4.5 percent still overstates the expected growth by a full percentage point relative to the IMF forecast.
Option D is wrong because 2.5 percent understates the projection and would typically be associated with a weaker world economy than the IMF described for 2017.

Common Pitfalls:
A common mistake is to confuse the growth rate of a single fast growing country, such as India or China, with the global average. Another pitfall is to misremember the direction of change, thinking that growth fell when it actually rose. To avoid this, remember that around 2017 global growth was described as recovering modestly to about the mid three percent range, and that 3.5 percent is a good benchmark figure to recall for this period.

Final Answer:
3.5 percent growth in world output.