In contrast to the tense private drama, Act III is brought to a thrilling conclusion by King Henry's public defiance of the Roman Catholic Church, as he defies the papal legate, divorces Catherine, takes Anne as his wife, and proclaims himself head of the Church of England.

(A) In contrast to the tense private drama, Act III is brought to a thrilling conclusion by King Henry's public defiance of the Roman Catholic Church, as he defies the papal legate, divorces Catherine, takes Anne as his wife, and proclaims himself head of the Church of England.

(B) In contrast to the tense private drama, a thrilling conclusion of Act III is brought by King Henry's public defiance of the Roman Catholic Church, as he defies the papal legate, divorces Catherine, takes Anne as his wife, and proclaims himself head of the Church of England.

(C) In contrast to the tense private drama, King Henry publicly defies the Roman Catholic Church by defying the papal legate, divorcing Catherine, taking Anne as his wife, and proclaiming himself head of the Church of England, bringing Act III to a thrilling conclusion.

(D) In contrast to the tense private drama, King Henry's defiance of the papal legate, divorce from Catherine, marriage to Anne, and self-proclamation as head of the Church of England, all a public defiance of the Roman Catholic Church which brings Act III to a thrilling conclusion.


(E)
In contrast to the tense private drama, King Henry's public defiance of the Roman Catholic Church brings Act III to a thrilling conclusion, as he defies the papal legate, divorces Catherine, takes Anne as his wife, and proclaims himself head of the Church of England.

In C we probably compare private drama with King Henry,

I think it's not the best option

Contrast: The tensed drama is "PRIVATE", while King Henry's defiance is "PUBLIC"

The defiance heralded an end of Act III, which was characteristics of certain activities:
as the king defies..., divorces Catherine, takes Anne as his wife, and
proclaims himself head of the Church of England.

In that sense, E is correct.
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Hi Maryam,
if you've read the original sentence carefully, you would realize that its trying to compare two things.
For example, in contrast to X, Y; as in saying: in contrast to a military regime, the civilian administration
makes laws, which requires both the Senate and House of Reps to subject such bills to debate before it
is passed into law.
In contrast to a dude, a lady will most likely prefer to be a good listener in matters of relationship.

Does that make sense?

Now, back to your question.
We can equally say: unlike X, Y.
Unlike the private drama, the public defiance of King Henry brought Act III to a thrilling conclusion..2 opposing
scenario.
However, option B compares the "tensed private drama" to "a thrilling conclusion of Act III"...that's illogical, right?
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What a lively discussion )
The source is GoGMAT (http://gogmat.com/) it is an pretty nice e-course.
Some questions are challenging. This is one of that question that I can't totally absorb owing to language that is not my native.

So the OA here is really E. Great job and Kudos for gmatbull !!

I was wrong duiring the test and made a mistake.
I followed the same assumption as above and chose answer C, which is incorrect due to incomparability if sure there is such a word exist .

Could anyone explain why (a) is wrong here ?
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Didn't give up !!! Still Trying!!

The rule still applies. It states:

Possessive noun + Possessive Pronoun - CORRECT (X's salary is too high as is his stature) (dont try to make sense out of these sentences )
Possessive noun + non-possessive pronoun - INCORRECT (X's salary is too high as he lives in NY)
NP noun + P Pronoun - CORRECT ( X is a great man, and his children are blabla)
NP Noun + NP Pronoun - CORRECT (X is a great man, and he is blabla)

basically:
if the referent is a 'normal' (non-possessive) noun, then the pronoun can be in any case.
if the referent is in the possessive case, then the pronoun can only be possessive.

so essentially only when the noun is in possessive case and the pronoun is not in possessive case is this construction wrong. That is the case here.

Hence there is ambiguity and probably the question is not reflective of what you might get on the test day.

Best
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Hey gmatbull,

Request you to re-read the Manhattan post you mentioned. It says the same thing as I wrote in my post above. In fact I picked a part of it from there itself.

I quote Ron here:

the "rule" is:
* POSSESSIVE NOUN with NON-POSSESSIVE PRONOUN is NOT OK.
BUT
ALL OTHER COMBINATIONS are ok.
i.e.
possessive noun with possessive pronoun is ok.
non-possessive noun with non-possessive pronoun is ok.
non-possessive noun with possessive pronoun is ok.

that's the complete version of the rule -- which, not surprisingly, tends to confuse a lot more than it tends to enlighten. also, although it may help you eliminate the odd answer choice here and there, it has NEVER actually been required to solve an official problem.

so:
ONLY use this "rule" if you understand it 100.0000%. if there is absolutely any confusion at all, just ignore this rule and pretend that you have never seen it.


Hope this helps.

Best
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I actually disagreed with the use of "he" to refer to "King Henry's" as contradicting the Possessive rule until I came
across another question that does same- this time in the none-underlined part; hence my later past.

Nevertheless, it's better to keep to the rule if you know it even though tit has not been used as a sole factor
in ANY correct choice.

Thanks.
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