12 Days of Christmas GMAT Competition - Day 8: The Battle of Crecy was

The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than they had been in their earlier assaults on France.

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults
(B) their earlier assaults had been
(C) they had been for any earlier assault
(D) in their earlier assaults
(E) for any earlier assault - correct answer

subject is Edward III’s archery unit , which is singular so we need singular verb ; assaults

option C , E can be eliminated

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults usage of they is wrong for singular subject
(B) their earlier assaults had been meaning error ;
(D) in their earlier assaults


OPTION D is correct

Shorter is better. The answer (E) works fine. In (A) - (D), "they" and "their" are unclear.

A,C - Parallelism error
D,E- Using the incorrect tense

IMO B

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Explanation:
The sentence states that, The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than the weaponry they had in their earlier assaults on France.

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults
Comparison error. Weaponry has been compared to the archery unit. Like entities should be compared. OUT.

(B) their earlier assaults had been
Comparison error. Weaponry has been compared to earlier assaults. Like entities should be compared. OUT.

(C) they had been for any earlier assault
Same error as (A). OUT.

(D) in their earlier assaults
Conveys the intended meaning. Compares more advanced weaponry with weaponry used in earlier assaults. KEEP IT.

(E) for any earlier assault
Parallelism error. More X than Y should have X and Y as parallel elements. Here "with" has been made parallel to "for". OUT.

ANSWER D.

The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war,
primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry
than
they had been in their earlier assaults on France.


The use of they had been is redundant.
D is more concise and correct
Incorrect


The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than their earlier assaults had been on France.
The sentence does not convey original meaning and is incorrect.


The use of they had been is redundant.
The use of in their is better than that of for any
Incorrect


The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than in their earlier assaults on France.
Is concise and correct sentence and conveys the original meaning.
Correct


The use of in their is better than that of for any
Incorrect


IMO D

D is correct.
A is incorrect since ''their earlier attacks' is used implying only recent attacks while sentence talk about 100 year .

This is essentially a parallelism question.
Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than what?

A- seems right. armed with advanced weaponry is being compared with how armed they were with advanced weaponry in previous assaults.
B- Can't compare previous assaults with how armed the archery unit was.
C- how armed they were for an assault vs in A, it's how armed they were in the assault. Kind of confusing but A sounds idiomatically better(not sure tbh)
D,E- same problem as B.

Hence, IMO A.

A) Logical comparison. Keep.

B) Comparing how the units were armed to previous assaults. Out.

C) Logical comparison. Keep.

D) Same as B. Out.
D) Same as B. Out.

A vs C is quite tricky.

I am going with C. The expanded form is more logical - the unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than (the unit) they had been (armed with weaponry) for any any earlier assault.

The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than they had been in their earlier assaults on France.

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults
(B) their earlier assaults had been
(C) they had been for any earlier assault
(D) in their earlier assaults
(E) for any earlier assault

- the subject in this case is the archery unit
- the archery unit being armed with "more advanced weaponry" is an event that has occurred in the past and this weaponry is better than what they had in their previous assaults i.e. this is the case of an action in the past before another action in the past so we need the past perfect in here this eliminates B D and E
- now we want to know if it is for any vs in their

- for any of their earlier assaults is incorrect here because it doesn't make sense for them to be equipped more advanced weaponry than they been for .., this is illogical predication

Therefore, A is the correct answer because it makes logical sense and uses the appropriate tense

The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than they had been in their earlier assaults on France.

The un-underlined portion of the sentence has the superlative comparison term "greatest", so there must have been many victories therefore many assaults. We require "assaults" in the comparison. Eliminate C & E

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults - Correct
(B) their earlier assaults had been - Comparison Error between archery unit and assaults
(C) they had been for any earlier assault - eliminated
(D) in their earlier assaults - Comparison Error
(E) for any earlier assault - eliminated

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults - Incorrect - they has no referent, correct pronoun to be used here is their
(B) their earlier assaults had been - Incorrect- usage of had been is redundant as earlier makes the time sequence clear
(C) they had been for any earlier assault - - Incorrect - they has no referent, correct pronoun to be used here is their
(D) in their earlier assaults - Correct
(E) for any earlier assault - Incorrect - Archery unit is compared with earlier assaults

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults
Incorrect pronoun. Unit is singular.
(B) their earlier assaults had been
Same as A
(C) they had been for any earlier assault
Same as A
(D) in their earlier assaults
Same as A
(E) for any earlier assault
Correct option.

The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than they had been in their earlier assaults on France.

Structure is was armed with X than Y.
(A) they had been in their earlier assaults "Correct comparison with verb tense."

(B) their earlier assaults had been "Incorrect comparison between weaponry and assual."

(C) they had been for any earlier assault "Incorrect assault is singular but we have to choose plural."

(D) in their earlier assaults incorrect comparison between weaponry and assault."

(E) for any earlier assault " incorrect comparison between weaponry and assault."

Hence IMO A.

OA)A
The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than they had been in their earlier assaults on France.

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults

(B) their earlier assaults had been
--> comparison between archery unit to assaults ; archery unit(person) should compared with another person

(C) they had been for any earlier assault
-->comparing the archery unit with they(English) but logical would be to say the English were armed in their assaults not any assault on France.

(D) in their earlier assaults
--> comparison between archery unit to assaults ; archery unit(person) should compared with another person

(E) for any earlier assault
--> comparison between archery unit to assaults ; archery unit(person) should compared with another person

The Battle of Crecy was one of the greatest English victories in the 100 year war, primarily because Edward III’s archery unit was armed with more advanced weaponry than they had been in their earlier assaults on France.

(A) they had been in their earlier assaults
The plural “they” cannot replace the singular word “Edward III’s archery unit”. – Incorrect.

(B) their earlier assaults had been
Here the comparison made is illogical. Here “assaults” has been compared with “weaponry” - Incorrect.

(C) they had been for any earlier assault
This construction is awkward and unnecessarily wordy. The plural “they” cannot replace the singular word “Edward III’s archery unit” – Incorrect.

(D) in their earlier assaults
There are no obvious errors present in this choice. I would keep this as a Contender.

(E) for any earlier assault
The article “for” is incorrectly used here. – Incorrect.

Answer: Option D