What was as impressive as the discovery of a treatment for

(A) Vs (C) for me, IMO (A) wins.

A What was as impressive as the discovery of a treatment for cancer
what refers to has been in the second part of sentence. CONTENDER
B The item that was as impressive as discovering a treatment for cancer
The item is not appropriate to refer the development of new techniques.
C No less impressive than the discovery of a treatment for cancer
Good to compare but the "not"could have been a better fit for ...has been the development..." CONTENDER
D Discovering a treatment for cancer has been none the less impressive than
Meaning changes, here, discovery has been given more priority than development .
E The discovery of a treatment for cancer has been no less impressive as
the sentence underlined will join has been-not appropriate.

A & C are contenders. I chose C because in A, "was" is not in || with "has been".

Re-arrange C:
The development of new techniques to diagnose, with tremendous accuracy, the presence of pre-cancerous cells has been no less impressive than the discovery of a treatment for cancer.

C sounds to be correct answer for this. Please provide OA.

First of all, I am not sure that I like this question. I don't know the source. It appears to hinge a bit more on subtlety than do the SC questions in official material. I would like to see something a little more definitively wrong in the wrong answers --- that would make it a stronger question. Nevertheless, (C) is very clearly the best answer. I assume (C) is the OA, insofar as this question has an OA. Abhii46 asked for the OA. It's a big assumption that a question without a known source even has an OA! Remember, if we don't know the source, then it could be a highly reputable source, or it may be have been written by someone who doesn't know the answer himself! Never never never put your full faith in the validity of a question for which the source is unknown --- any question is only as reliable as its source!

Now, Kanusha, let's talk about (C). Not only is (C) 100% correct, but it's much more elegant, concise, and direct than (A). I also am intrigued by catennacio's point --- he contends that the verbs in (A) are not parallel; of course, verbs in parallel do not have to have the same tense --- see this post ---
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... rb-tenses/
nevertheless, there may be some merit in that argument. Even if (A) is perfectly correct, it's long and clunky compared to (C). Choice (C) uses an idiomatic construction:
"No" [comparative] "than" [term of comparison] "is/was" [subject]
No less a piano virtuoso than Chopin was Beethoven, who dazzled audiences of the day with his passionate performances.
No less educated than Thomas Jefferson was Ben Franklin, author and serious scientific researcher.
This is a very elegant construction --- alternate constructions to convey the same meaning would be much wordier, less direct, and more awkward.
Ben Franklin was no less educated than Thomas Jefferson, and Franklin was also an author and serious scientific researcher.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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I hardly can find the original source of this question, is it a gmat-like question?

C cannot be the answer, it changes the meaning.
In A, they are equally impressive.
In C, No less impressive. may be equally or more impressive.
Both are different.

Please correct me if i am wrong.

Hi mikemcgarry

In answer choices (A) and (B) can we infer that there is an unjustified switch in timeline?

"was as impressive....has been the development"
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