Despite Beethoven's traditional status as the first great Romantic com

(A) The sentence does not contain any correct antecedent for he. It should be Beethoven but there’s not such word in that answer. The idiom “considered to be” is also wrong.

(B) Now the idiom is right but the pronoun is still not right; he has no antecedent.

(C) "as being" is not needed.

(D) Cool!

(E) the dependent clause is referring to some musicologists, not to the logical Beethoven

D is the best for me.

This question tests the idiom consider X Y where X and Y are noun and noun modifier respectively. The wrong forms of the idiom are: 1. consider X to be Y and 2. consider X as Y.
A is incorrect because it uses the wrong form consider X to be Y.
C and E are incorrect because they use the wrong form of the idiom consider X as Y.
B and D use the idiom the right way. I choose D as better because it is clearer. X is clearly stated as Beethoven, a noun, in D. In addition, the possessive pronoun his has a logical antecedent of Beethoven. This makes D a better choice than B in which there is no clear antecedent for the pronoun he. Although pronoun ambiguity is not a hard and fast rule, I believe an option without any errors that has a clear antecedent is better than that an option in which the pronoun refers to a possessive pronoun. In B, he refers to his status, unlike D where he refers to the noun Beethoven.

Despite Beethoven's traditional status as the first great Romantic composer, he is considered by some musicologists to be the last great composer of the Classical era.

A. Despite Beethoven's traditional status as the first great Romantic composer, he is considered by some musicologists to be the last great composer of the Classical era.

B. Despite Beethoven's traditional status as the first great Romantic composer, he is considered the last great composer of the Classical era by some musicologists.

C. Although his status is traditionally as the first great Romantic composer, Beethoven is considered as being the last great composer of the Classical era by some musicologists.

D. Despite his traditional status as the first great Romantic composer, Beethoven is considered the last great composer of the Classical era by some musicologists.

E. Although he is traditionally considered to be the first great Romantic composer, some musicologists consider Beethoven as the last great composer of the Classical era.

IMO D
A,B are out because of absence of a noun which he can refer to.
C can be rules out because of use of being
E seems to be a bit lengthy .
Hence go with D

NOTES: Idiom "Consider <something>" without "to be" or "as";

Ans (D)

Hey VeritasKarishma soul sister,
Isn’t some musicologists modifying classical era?

"by some musicologists" is a prepositional phrase. It tells you considered by whom. It does not modify the era.

I know that there are other major issues determining the correct answer, but only to learn something new, is there any difference in meaning between these 2 statements below? Is these placement relevant maybe in another type of question?

- He is considered the last great composer of the Classical era by some musicologists.
- He is considered by some musicologists the last great composer of the Classical era.

Thanks in advance,

Crismore

I am confused between B and D.
I get why B is wrong: "he" can't refer to Beethoven's, "he" can refer to Beethoven
By the same logic, why is D not wrong? : "his" can refer only to "Beethoven's" and "Beethoven", right?