Contemporary accounts of the life of Charlemagne, crowned emperor by

I look at this question from a different perspective and conclude that A is the correct answer by logic.

The gist of the text is that the emperor was primarily an illiterate; his desire for a civilized state is a derivate and corollary of the primary cause. These two things are not equal in logic; therefore they both can not be used conjunctly by the co-ordinate – and -. C and D suffer this malady of equating two unequal ones.

A brings out this logic perfectly by subjugating the drive to his illiteracy, using the participle driven.

A is a shade better than C and D by logic; the use of - and or as well as – in prepositional structures is inconsequential in the given case and perhaps is a bait to wean away from the crux.
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Let me try to explain between A and D

a) that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire
c) that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire
d) that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire

D === the answer choice uses " as well as " , as well as can be used in place of and , but it is ideally used for not only..... but also, and should not be replace AND if not necessary, apart from that the later part of the sentence is wordy == AND THAT HE WAS

A=== flawless and best option available with brevity in place

Driven is used as past participle, and we avoid being passive as far as possible.

I think more than usage of 'as well as' & 'and', all the sentences except A are bugged by THAT and THAT clause...

Using THAT and THAT makes the phrase describe Charlemagne...it looks as if Charlemagne's account showed that 'founder of renaissance was illiterate' and that 'HE (who? Charlemagne? Founder? -- Ambiguous pronoun) was driven by HIS desire for...

A looks like the best fit.
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IMO, the passage is testing essentially an expression of paradoxical intention with concision. Basically the accounts show only one aspect i.e. the founder of the renaissance was himself an illiterate person. His being driven by a desire to achieve something was an auxiliary and not equal to the main theme that he was illiterate. Such subordinate factors are best articulated by appropriate participles.

That is the reason choices that use the relative pronoun 'that' in the second arm are tending to distort the meaning of the passage, as though there were two equivalent factors. We can eliminate choice C and D on the count of altered intent alone.

B - was himself an illiterate and also driven by his desire – is unparallel; in addition ‘and also’ is redundant.

E is out because of non-//ism with a passive voice and active voice construction.

A correctly brings out the crux of the author, using optimal wordage.

A good and deep conceptual question and a +1 to the poster.
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I read OE explaining that driven modify illiterate. I still don't see anything wrong in C which says man was illiterate and he was driven by desire

OE: A glance at the answer choices suggests that the issue here involves the participle “ driven. ” The sentence gives the surprising detail that a person interested in literature was illiterate, and then explains why an illiterate would have such an interest. As such, the participle “ driven ” is an integral description of the word “ illiterate, ” not of the man in general. Therefore, the participle must stand as it is and choice (A) is correct. Each other choice separates illiterate from driven, altering the meaning of the sentence.

Dear TooLong150
I am happy to respond to your p.m.

I'm a big fan of Charlemagne, but this is a poor quality SC question. First of all, the phrase "that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature" is identical in all five answer choices and should NOT be part of the underlined section: this just makes the question unnecessarily confusing. The splits are minuscule, not deeply meaningful. In many ways, this questions falls abysmally short of the high standards set by GMAT SC.

The central revelation of the contemporary accounts that, somewhat ironically, Charlemagne was an illiterate who has this desire to reform education. There's no reason to separate that into to "that" clauses, which is what (C) and (D) do; that's unnecessarily wordy. The phrasing in (A) is more elegant. Furthermore, in (D), there's no reason to say "in literature as well as in the arts" ---- that introduces a funny distinction between them, whereas "literature and the arts" just lumps them together.

In a high quality GMAT SC question, the incorrect answers would not have so little separating them from the OA. If you were confused by this question, don't interpret that as a failing on your part. This is a poor question. Here's a much better question, for practice:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3597

Mike
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So C and D can be eliminated solely based on wordiness? Do they alter the intended meaning in any way?

Dear TooLong150,
For GMAT purposes, there's no significant change in meaning in (C) & (D). Remember, this is a very poor quality question. Do not take this question as a model. Do not assume that real questions on the GMAT will follow the patterns inherent in this question. Paying attention to the specifics of this question could hurt you more than it helps you.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
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It has to be A...the sentence intends to show comparison...even though he was illiterate, it was his desire...
You cannot use AND as it just shows two qualities.....Sentence logic wise it has to be A.

BUT,

The sentence structure dosent seem correct. It seems like a run on. It should have a comma in between..just my opinion

Dear mango1banana,
I'm happy to respond.

As I have pointed out a few times in this thread, this question is a deeply flawed question. It is not up to the GMAT's standards. This is one of the reasons it generates so much discussion, because it lacks the crisp clarity of a high quality question.

Nevertheless, the sentence in (A), the OA, is not a run-on sentence. It is perfectly correct. Here it is:
Contemporary accounts of the life of Charlemagne, crowned emperor by the pope in 800, show that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire for a civilized state to reform education in his kingdom.
This is not run-on sentence----and by the way, adding a comma does NOT fix a run-on sentence! That's like saying a band-aid fixes a broken bone!!

Here's an article about run-on sentences:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/run-on-sen ... questions/

This sentence in (A) is a long sentence that has several structures nested inside each other. In that sense, the prompt itself is GMAT-like, even though the splits among the answer choices are not GMAT-like. For more on nested structures, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2014/nested-gra ... orrection/

Does all this make sense? Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Mike
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The central theme of the topic is to say that the emperor was in illiterate person with a desire for a civilized society in spite of his illiteracy. So the core theme of his illiteracy should be marked by a verb while his desire should be relegated to a modifier.

A. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire --- seems correct. Driven by his desire is a modifier.

B. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and also driven by his desire – use of as well as in incorrect, since as well as assigns a lower weight to the second factor; He gave equal importance to both the factors and that is why, the use of ‘and’ an equality marker is appropriate. 2. And also is redundant.

C. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire – giving equal status to his illiteracy and his desire is strategically incorrect

D. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire --- as well as is inappropriate. 2. Equal treatment o illiteracy and his desire is wrong as in C.

E. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that his desire drove him ---- Same strategic error as in C and D; In addition the expression that ‘his desire drove ‘ changes the meaning.
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Could someone elaborate on why "his" in "driven by his desire" can't refer to the founder but refers to the emperor?

Isn't it ambiguous?

Also, "founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts" doesn't it imply "founder of the Carolingian renaissance and founder of the arts" (I know this sounds illogical but "as well as in the" sounds better than "and" )

All he, him, his, etc. in a sentence must refer to the same antecedent. Since "himself" must refer to the "founder", so too must "his".

Charlemagne was "founder of renaissance", and the "renaissance" was "in literature and arts". So use of "and " is alright and is better than "as well as in" because of concision. Here the "in" before literature is outside the parallel structure X AND Y and hence covers both X and Y. (Nonetheless "in X and in Y" would also be correct - in that case "in" would be inside the parallel structure).

How is this conveyed in the sentence that Charlemagne was the founder? It could be a different person, couldn't it?

"in literature and arts" sounds better than "in literature and THE arts" why parallelism is violated here? Shouldn't article "the" be skipped? After seeing the article "the" I was mapping back to the previous article.

Your first query:
It does not matter whether Charlemagne was the founder - the pronoun "himself" and "his" refers to "founder".

Your second query:
Again it does not matter whether Charlemagne was the founder - founder of the Carolingian renaissance was himself an illiterate. What was the Renaissance about? ..about literature and arts. You are right that ideally the article " the" should not be there before "arts".

Here is OE
Read the Original Sentence Carefully, Looking for Errors:

No error presents itself upon reading the original sentence. The pronouns in the underlined portion are likely sources of GMAT errors, but "himself" and "his" correctly refer to Charlemagne. To determine whether the sentence is correct as written, evaluate the answer choices.

Scan and Group the Answer Choices:

A scan of the answer choices reveals that they are all worded the same up until the words "in literature," after which there is a 3-2 split. (A), (C), and (E) continue with "and the arts," while (B) and (D) use "as well as the arts."

Eliminate Wrong Answer Choices:

Both forms in the 3-2 split are grammatically correct, but on the GMAT, the shorter construction is preferred.

Eliminate (B) and (D). (B) also uses the redundant "and also"; only "and" is needed. (D) also introduces the wordier construction at the end with "and that he was driven."

A glance at (A), (C), and (E) suggests that the issue here involves the participle "driven." The sentence gives the surprising detail that a person interested in literature was illiterate, and then it explains why an illiterate would have such an interest. As such, the participle "driven" is an integral description of the noun "illiterate," not a separate action of the man in general.

Therefore, the participle must stand as it is. (C) separates "illiterate" from "driven," slightly altering the meaning of the sentence. (E) doesn't fit properly into the original sentence because it would end "... his desire drove him for..." The correct idiom is "... drove him to ...."

(A) is the correct answer.

TAKEAWAY: Don't be afraid of (A). It will be correct about 20 percent of the time.

Howdy -- explanation below

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Contemporary accounts of the life of Charlemagne, crowned emperor by the pope in 800, show that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire for a civilized state to reform education in his kingdom.

First glance -- all of the answer choices start out prettty much the same. Focus will be on the end of the sentence. After reading the original, make sure to scan for signals.

A. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire Correct

B. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and also driven by his desire The "driven" part could be more succinctly stated by connecting to illiterate. By not having this way, makes construction ambiguous.

C. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire the illiterate part could be more connected to driven -- too wordy here.

D. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire "as well as" just complicates the construction. "and that" is wordy and not necessary here either.

E. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that his desire drove him

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