A study done on children under the age of twelve showed that

"but that" is fine here. read the sentence as:

The study showed that (....) but that (....).

Answer: D

D. For your comparison, it took me 1 minute 10 sec to get this. You can immediately eliminate answer choices A, B, and C for failing to maintain parallelism. The correct answer choice should have the structure "A study on....showed X but Y." Y must start with the same word as with X. This leaves D and E. E can be eliminated because it sounds awkward and has verb tense errors.

Discussion:
How to use but-

1. Clause + COMMA + BUT + Clause, where the clauses are independent.

On the basis of this, the options A and B can be eliminated.

2.The pronoun "they" has more than one antecedents.

A and E can be eliminated for ambiguous "they".


3. A clause cannot be antecedent of "it".

It was more likely....

What does "it" refer to?

"15 percent of them experienced night terrors" is the logical antecedent of "it". Here, a clause has been used as an antecedent of it.

We can eliminate A and C.

Answer is D.

It was a tricky question, not an easy one.

It took me 2.45 mins to understand and answer this question :D

A) 1) Pronoun “they” is ambiguously used to refer to children or parents. 2) Lack of “;” between 2 independent clauses: “A study...” and “it was more likely…” 3) the use of “it was more likely that” change the meaning of the sentence  Incorrect
B) 1) The lack of comma prior to “but” indicates that the portion relating to “but” will not be an independent clause. If there is another clause, “;” or other conjunction should be used to connect the first non-underlined clause and the second underlined clause. However, the underlined portion relating to but is a clause and connected to the first clause by a comma.  Incorrect sentence structure.
C) 1) Incorrect structure: clause 1 but when S + V (when S+V = an independent clause). However, “but” in the non-underlined portion is not preceded by a comma. Thus, an independent clause cannot immediately follow “but”. 2) “that of their peers' ” = double possessive. 3) the use of “it was more likely that” change the meaning of the sentence  Incorrect
D) Correctly describes two results of the study: A study… showed that X but that Y. Pronoun “they” correctly refers to children. Correct comparison  Correct.
E) 1) Pronoun “they” is ambiguous. 2) Wrong comparison: 3) “behavior” is compared with “their peers”. 4) “to perceive” is prefer to “to be perceiving”  Incorrect

Hope it helps

Real Easy Pick
(A) for children whose parents had also experienced such terrors in childhood it was more likely that they would perceive their behaviour as fundamentally different from their peers

(B) for children whose parents also experienced such terrors in childhood, they were more likely than other children prone to night terrors to perceive their behaviour as fundamentally different from their peers'

(C) when children had parents who had also experienced such terrors in childhood it was more likely for them to be perceiving their behaviour as different from that of their peers'

(D) that children whose parents had also experienced such terrors in childhood were more likely than other children prone to night terrors to perceive their behaviour as fundamentally different from their peers'

(E) that when children had parents who had also experienced such terrors in childhood they were more likely to be perceiving behavior that differed from their peers


We can easily eliminate A,C and E because more is followed by "as"... more should always be followed by "than".
From D and B
B can be eliminated because "for" introduces a sub-ordinate clause that has to be followed by a comma.
FANBOYS(For,And, Neither, But, Or,Yet,So) these boys should always be followed by a comma when joining the subordinate clause.

there are many errors in the wrong sentences. The ones I followed are as below
More must be followed by than. Hence A, C & E are wrong.
The study showed 2 things that xxxxxxxx & that xxxxxx, Between B & D only D follows correct parallelism with that.
Hence D is correct
Another reason to eliminate B is THEY. the use of pronoun is ambiguous.

(A) for children whose parents had also experienced such terrors in childhood it was more likely that they would perceive their behaviour as fundamentally different from their peers

(B) for children whose parents also experienced such terrors in childhood, they were more likely than other children prone to night terrors to perceive their behaviour as fundamentally different from their peers'

(C) when children had parents who had also experienced such terrors in childhood it was more likely for them to be perceiving their behaviour as different from that of their peers'

(D) that children whose parents had also experienced such terrors in childhood were more likely than other children prone to night terrors to perceive their behaviour as fundamentally different from their peers'

(E) that when children had parents who had also experienced such terrors in childhood they were more likely to be perceiving behavior that differed from their peers

IMO this question is incorrectly framed if D is the OA.
Because in D, we have 'likely' and 'prone' which are redundant. If 'prone' is to characterize children then it should have been 'children who are prone to night terrors'

No, this is not correct. In your example the modifier for "children" is a relative pronoun modifier: "who are prone....". However the modifier could as well be a direct adjective phrase: "prone....". In option D "prone" is used as a direct adjective for "children".

…children whose parents had also experienced such terrors in childhood were more likely than other children prone to night …

More likely refers to children whose parents had also experienced such terrors in childhood

prone to night terrors refers to other children.

So we are talking about different children, and the comparison is not redundant.

A B and C fail to maintain //ism on ‘that’, so they can be discarded.

E is in the wrong tense and that distorts the meaning.



D is the right answer.

It look me a magical 1 min 25 it's nothing sort of a miracle the key for identification was that the they wasn't ambigious which in turn backed to the point that there should be a clear distinction as of which is associated to parent or child keeping that in mind let us move forward , only option which keeps this distinction prestine is IMO D

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