After viewing both movies, John agreed that the first one

Question

After viewing both movies, John agreed that the first one was the best of the two.
(A) John agreed that the first one was the best of the two
(B) John agreed that the first was the best of the two
(C) John agreed that the first one was the better of the two
(D) John agreed that of the two the better one was the first
(E) John agreed that the best of the two was the first

Source: Barrons

Marcab · Answer

Use comparitive i.e. better.
In d, that introduces a clause with a preposition. So I feel its incorrect.
+1C

plumber250 · Answer

This one has me puzzled

It's clearly only between C&D (as Marcab says - it's a comparative)

but I don't really like the OA (D) at all, it 'just sounds wrong', that said I'm not overly comfortable with C either.

Could we have the OE?

aim730 · Answer

Could you please mention the source and also provide the OE on this.
The answer should be C instead of D.
I am totally confused here.

Maryam787 · Answer

I agree with Macrab,,,because D option is bit confusing,,,Message is clearly conveyed in C option,,plz correct me if I'm wrong

TGC · Answer

OA seems to be dubious, Experts plz pour in !!!!!

faamir · Answer

Experts please help.The OA mentioned is D, but the correct answer seems to be C.

rohitt911 · Answer

This is from Barrons and the OA is C indeed. 
When comparing two items> better
When comparing more than two items> best

D is awkward.

mvictor · Answer

the better? why do we need the article?
I doubt that this is a good practice question...

pradeep15793 · Answer

I guess C is incorrect as it should be of the form "X is better than Y".
As "than" is missing in that comparative statement, it can't be correct.
Whereas in option D, the statement was rephrased to eliminate that error.

Posted from my mobile device

Purvidebuka · Answer

Hi, this question got me too stumped. I would really appreciate your help here.

ryanstarr · Answer

Hello, all!

First off, I'm firmly on the side of  answer (C)  here, like earlier posters. If we run a straight comparison between (C) and (D), there doesn't seem to be any real advantage to (D). For instance, while you might object to the use of  the better  in answer (C), answer (D) also uses  the better  (and of course, without a  than , which wouldn't be idiomatically appropriate with  the better  anyway. So what really differentiates these two answers from each other? Only the placement of things:  one ,  the first , and  of the two . The question is how the different positions might affect the grammar or meaning/clarity of the sentence. And while this is a fairly close call, the phrase  the better of the two  conveys the clearest meaning in the most idiomatic way (a more common idiom related to this is  the best of all ). Even (D) would read better if that portion were written the other way around: John agreed that  the better of the two  was the first. As with most idiomatic issues, there's not really a great rule to cite--idioms usually just are the way the are, unsatisfyingly. In further issues, the use of  one  is a bit awkward in both (C) and (D), so that's not a great reason to pick one over the other.

One other minor point to raise here is that indeed this is  not  a particularly test-like question. One pretty clear giveaway is that all the answers start with  John agreed that ; generally speaking, the GMAT starts its underline where there are differences to introduce in the answers, so if this were an official question, one would expect the underline (and the answer choices) to start after  that .

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After viewing both movies, John agreed that the first one

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