Merlin's Beard! A toughie indeed.
Option (C) for me. The best among the seemingly worse choices.
According to John Dewey's progressive philosophy of education, a school should be designed as a laboratory, in which children may develop their potential through the integration of experience and learning, and also as an embryonic community that exposes them to the principles of democracy, rather than just teaching abstract knowledge.
MEANING: Schools should be designed as laboratories rather than just teaching abstract knowledge.
Quote:
A. a school should be designed as a laboratory, in which children may develop their potential through the integration of experience and learning, and also as an embryonic community that exposes them to the principles of democracy, rather than just teaching abstract knowledge
X rather than Y. X is
exposes them to the principles of democracy and Y is
just teaching abstract knowledge. X and Y should be parallel.
Incorrect.
Quote:
B. rather than just teaching abstract knowledge, schools should be designed as laboratories, in which children develop their potential by integrating experiencing and learning and are exposed to the principles of democracy as are members of an embryonic community
rather than just teaching abstract knowledge -
schools should be designed as laboratories. This structure is wrong. In X rather than Y structures, X and Y should be parallel. Here, one is verbing phrase (teaching abstract knowledge) while the other is a noun (laboratories). This is not acceptable.
Incorrect.
Quote:
C. a school should be designed as a laboratory, in which children may develop their potential by integrating experience and learning, and as an embryonic community, where they are exposed to the principles of democracy, rather than as a mere purveyor of abstract knowledge
X rather than Y parallelism is maintained. Conveys the intended meaning correctly.
Right choice.Quote:
D. schools should be designed as laboratories, in which children may develop their potential by integrating experience and learning, rather than just teaching abstract principles, and as an embryonic community that exposes them to the principles of democracy
Correct structure is, ...should be designed
as X rather than as Y. This option choice does not follow the same.
Incorrect.
Quote:
E. a school should be designed as a laboratory, in which children may develop their potential by integrating experiencing and learning, rather than just acquiring abstract knowledge; it should also be an embryonic community, that exposes them to democratic principles.
Same error as above.
Incorrect.
IMO, questions such as these require a clear understanding of the meaning of the sentence before diving into the option choices.