Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis was of a treatment metho

Question

Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis was of a treatment method that would be accessible to everyone, rich and poor alike; ironically, it evolved to be  a sectarian, elitist practice, understood only by the initiated.

(A) Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis was of a treatment method that would be accessible to everyone, rich and poor alike; ironically, it evolved to be

(B) Freud originally conceived of psychoanalysis to be an accessible treatment method for everyone, rich and poor alike; ironically, it has evolved such that it became

(C) Freud originally conceived of psychoanalysis to be a treatment method for everyone, accessible to rich and poor alike ironically, what has evolved was its becoming

(D) Freud originally conceived of psychoanalysis as a treatment method that would be accessible to everyone, rich and poor alike; ironically, it has evolved into

(E) Freud originally conceived of psychoanalysis as a method for treating everyone, accessible to rich and poor alike; ironically, this has evolved into

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VibhuAnurag · Answer

Option D.

(A) The use of "evolved to be" is not idiomatic.

(B) This option is wordy and awkward. The phrase "it has evolved such that it became" is not clear.

(C) This option has awkward phrasing with "what has evolved was its becoming."

(D) This is the correct choice. It is concise, grammatically correct, and effectively conveys the intended meaning using the idiom "evolved into."

(E) This option is somewhat awkward and less clear than option (D). The use of "this has evolved into" is not as direct as "it has evolved into" in option (D).

Amobnc · Answer

I got confused between A and D. it evolved to be vs. has evolved into are both idiomatically correct though I might have overlooked their meanings. 
conceived of vs. conception of is what threw me off..

Freud's original conception of vs Freud originally conceived of. The first one sounds better to me.
Can I get an explanation of this idiom please?

Thanks!

DmitryFarber · Answer

This is a somewhat awkward adaptation of an official question. You're much better off just studying the original: https://gmatclub.com/forum/marconi-s-co ... 86554.html

Be careful about assuming that when we see multiple idioms or constructions, one is right and the others are wrong. "Evolved into" is good, but there's nothing wrong with "evolved to be," either, and GMAT idioms shouldn't depend on things like our understanding of evolution. Now what about "conceived" vs. "conception"? The main difference is that the former is a verb and the latter is a noun, so they require completely different constructions. There's nothing inherently wrong with either, but we need the rest of the sentence to work. Are we saying HOW Freud (or Marconi, in the original) conceived of something, or are we saying WHAT his conception was? In this case, A is a bit off. When we say "his conception of X was of a Y," presumably we are saying X=Y. In other words, he thought psychoanalysis WAS a treatment method that would be accessible to everyone. That makes sense, so I don't know that we can say A is definitively incorrect. However, it is a funny way to express the idea, and presumably the question author thought that if we say "Freud's conception was," we should follow with WHAT the conception was, not a modifier.

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis was of a treatment method that would be accessible to everyone, rich and poor alike; ironically, it evolved to be  a sectarian, elitist practice, understood only by the initiated.

(A) Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis was of a treatment method that would be accessible to everyone, rich and poor alike; ironically, it evolved to be

Incorrect.

The phrase  Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis was of a treatment method  unnecessarily repeats the preposition  of (conception of...was of)  and is hence awkward and redundant.

There is an answer choice which conveys the meaning of the sentence in a more concise way. Find it!

(B) Freud originally conceived of psychoanalysis to be an accessible treatment method for everyone, rich and poor alike; ironically, it has evolved such that it became

Incorrect.

While this answer choice seems to correct the original stylistic mistake, it in fact creates a new one. The phrase  conceived...to be  and the phrase  evolved such that it became  are stylistically awkward and wordy. Look for a more concise way to express the same meanings.

(C) Freud originally conceived of psychoanalysis to be a treatment method for everyone, accessible to rich and poor alike ironically, what has evolved was its becoming

Incorrect.

While this answer choice seems to correct the original stylistic mistake, it in fact creates a new one. The phrase  conceived...to be  and the phrase  what has evolved was its becoming  are stylistically awkward and wordy. Look for a more concise way to express the same meanings.

(D) Freud originally conceived of psychoanalysis as a treatment method that would be accessible to everyone, rich and poor alike; ironically, it has evolved into

This answer choice corrects the stylistic mistake by using the idiomatic and concise phrase  originally conceived of psychoanalysis as .

Note that this question asks you to choose between stylistically flawed answer choices -- answer choices A, B, C, and D all use the ambiguous pronoun  it  or  its . When you vertically scan these answer choices (and after having eliminated answer choice E), you can safely ignore this common stylistic flaw and look for other grammatical mistakes and/or stylistic flaws.

Remember, you are looking for the best answer choice, not the perfect one.

(E) Freud originally conceived of psychoanalysis as a method for treating everyone, accessible to rich and poor alike; ironically, this has evolved into

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the original stylistic mistake, it is illogical. It replaces the pronoun  it , which refers directly to  psychoanalysis , with the pronoun  this , which refers to the situation of Freud's original conception. However, this creates the illogical statement that Freud's conception  has evolved into a sectarian... practice .

Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis was of a treatment metho

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Freud's original conception of psychoanalysis was of a treatment metho

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