Immanuel Kant's writings are characterized by sentences so dense and convoluted as to pose[/u] a significant hurdle for many readers interested in his works.
Meaning: Kant's writings contain complex sentences and these sentences are so complex that readers face problems to understand them.
This sentence is presented as a general fact or statement.
A. so dense and convoluted as to pose.............answer
B. so dense and convoluted they posed..........
they don't pose only in past they can be difficult even now. Changes the intended meaning.C. so dense and convoluted that they posed.............
.so that indicates purpose.
There is no purpose here i.e., neither difficulty is intentionally induced nor hurdles for reader are intentional.
posed repeats here.D. dense and convoluted enough that they posed.........
enough error is introduced here.
posed issue repeats here.E. dense and convoluted enough as they pose..............
.changes the intended meaning as if they become complex when they pose hurdles for reader.
There are few aspects to be noted here.
1. here convoluted is an adjective not a verb in past tense.
Meaning of convoluted as per Oxford dictionary is as below.
Quote:
convoluted....adjective
1(Especially of an argument, story, or sentence) extremely complex and difficult to follow:
the film is let down by a convoluted plot in which nothing really happens
When Douglas's character smells a rat, the convoluted thriller plot is set in motion.
convolute..........verb
The data was therefore convoluted with a profile that mimics the image of a microtubule to filter out the vertical coordinate.
Sula challenges us to reconsider how histories of tops and bottoms within American social structures become convoluted into the ironic hierarchies and differences in African American society.
So here dense and convoluted both define the complex nature of sentences.
2.
Why option A is correct."So X as to Y" means something is SO (big, strong, slow, whatever, but something kind of extreme) that it actually causes something else to happen - something that wouldn't ordinarily happen. so here the sentences are so difficult that their difficulty resulted in becoming hurdle for readers.
3.
For those who feel D or E can be right. This info from Mgmat forum helps.1. The temperature outside was cold enough to cause frostbite.
2. The temperature outside was so cold as to cause frostbite.
There is a subtle distinction between the idiom "so x as to y" and "x is enough to y."
The original sentence uses the idiom "so x as to y" to indicate that characteristic x is so extreme in the particular case that y results.
In contrast, the idiom "x is enough to y" is used when x is the criteria by which an ability to achieve y is measured.
Thus, if a sentence stated that "The temperature outside was cold enough to cause frostbite." this would convey a different meaning: that the temperature is the criteria by which one measures the ability to cause frostbite."
For one thing, "X enough to Y" has a little more of a connotation of intention -- for example, "I ate enough to win the eating contest" is preferable to "I ate so much as to win the eating contest."
In the former case, I intended to win the contest, and I ate enough to ensure that. In the latter case, I could have simply been on an eating binge, and by accident I wound up winning the contest.
However, in the case, the difference isn't one of intention. In the first case, "The temperature was cold enough to cause frostbite," I'm emphasizing the outcome -- in a way, I'm defining two temperature ranges, one that causes frostbite and one that doesn't, and I'm saying, we're in the former.
But if I say "The temperature was so cold as to cause frostbite," in a sense I'm just tossing out the fact that frostbite would be caused in this case, but I'm not defining a threshold as I am with the "cold enough to cause frostbite."