A central figure in the early homeschooling movement, John H

Question

A central figure in the early homeschooling movement,  John Holt's How Children Fail is to unschoolers what  Helen and Scott Nearing's Living the Good Life is to contemporary homesteaders.

A. John Holt's How Children Fail is to unschoolers what
B. John Holt's How Children Fail is to unschoolers like
C. John Holt's How Children Fail is to unschoolers just as
D. John Holt wrote a book, How Children Fail, that is to unschoolers what
E. John Holt wrote a book, How Children Fail, that is to unschoolers like

correct idiom is ... is to........what........isto

So left with a and d

a is having misplaced modifier problem, as central figure would be john holt not john holt's how children fail ( though i am not sure , but it seems like)
is john holt's how children fail could be central figure, if not why???

d is having parallism error, as non underline portion contains  Scott Nearing's Living the Good Life  therefore in underlined portion it should be  John Holt's How Children Fail

please explain???

Paris75 · Answer

Hi,

In the sentence you have  A central figure in the early homeschooling movement,

it needs to be followed by  John Holt  and not  John Holt's How Children Fail

Eliminate A B C

Hope it helps

wastedyouth · Answer

Agreed , but it leads to parallelism error, as in non underlined portion Helen and Scott Nearing's Living the Good Life 
Pl explain

Paris75 · Answer

No because  that   refers to a book. X, who wrote a book, that is for X what Z is for M.

here book and Z must be parallel. In our case Z=" Helen and Scott Nearing's Living the Good Life " which is a book.

Hope it helps

dheeraj24 · Answer

Here in this question A,B,C introduces modifier error . ----- A,B,C eliminated.

Between D and E , in option E , we are using like to introduce a clause (like is used to compare nouns) .Hence E eliminated.

Therefore D

rt9 · Answer

this is a bad question. 
no one would construct such a question logically.
comparing the importance of a figure who wrote a book to the importance of some authors' book is just nonsense

fmik7894 · Answer

A central figure in the early homeschooling movement,  John Holt's How Children Fail is to unschoolers what  Helen and Scott Nearing's Living the Good Life is to contemporary homesteaders.

a. John Holt's How Children Fail is to unschoolers what
b. John Holt's How Children Fail is to unschoolers like
c. John Holt's How Children Fail is to unschoolers just as
d. John Holt wrote a book, How Children Fail, that is to unschoolers what
e. John Holt wrote a book, How Children Fail, that is to unschoolers like

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

rt9 , actually, the GMAT would definitely present a sentence like this. How do I know? Because this question is a very close copy of a real GMAT question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-leading-fi ... 51612.html The original is better written, but the basic comparison is the same. It's not between an author and a book, but between two books. In every single choice, even those that incorrectly make the book the object of the modifier "a central figure," the comparison that is made is between the two books. Book X is to this group what Book Y is to that group. This is a valid comparison format.

VerbalBot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club VerbalBot: 

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

 This post was generated automatically.

A central figure in the early homeschooling movement, John H

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

A central figure in the early homeschooling movement, John H

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards