In 1495, after nearly a century in which they battled

it is wrong for 2 reason

firstly the ellipses in A demand that that word "battling" should have been in the text , however it is not there

secondly A is gives a tense sequence which in not even required !!. by not required , i mean that the context does not ask u to really differentiate as who had fought this war earlier

i hope that first reason is clear to u so i will explain the second :

A says : more brutally than the occupying Portuguese ever had been, the Castilians completely pacified the population of the Canary Islands and incorporated the Islands

think it this way : the Castilians battled against native Guanches more brutally than the occupying Portuguese ever had been ----> it seems to suggest that "Portuguese" were fighting wars with "native Guanches" much earlier in time than "Castilians battled against native Guanches"-----------> this sequence is really not required because the context wants to compare the brutality and not the sequence of wars !!

is it clear now ?

Choice D is correct. It properly compares how brutally each camp treated the natives.

Choice A has the past perfect tense, when it's not necessary. Though it may sound correct, it is written awkwardly. Everything should be in simple past, since the sequence of events is already assumed.

In option A, the adverb 'brutally' does not fit with past perfect tense 'Portuguese ever had been'

Portuguese could have been "brutal" not "brutally"

options A means to say " they battled more brutally than Portuguese ever had been"

it would make more sense to say " they battled more brutally than Portuguese ever did "
or " They were more brutal than the Portuguese ever had been"

@sshrivats, @aditya8062,

Yes now I can feel that subtle difference in meaning.

What if sentence were written as follwing, would it be right ?
Castilians battled against native Guanches more brutally than the occupying Portuguese ever had.
Castilians battled against native Guanches more brutally than the occupying Portuguese ever had battled.

What about the use of Brutally in B..I think it is valid and correct..B is wrong coz incorporated changes the meaning here..
Wat say?

Also for A I would say 'been' is the party blooper...without this 'been' ..A should be correct
Dont know why..just that it sounds OK is all I can say

Plug option B. In option A they in absolute phrase modifier is referring to Castilians, but here it is referring to the population.

Further there is ambiguity in meaning :
X fought against Y more brutally than Z.
or
X fought against Y more brutally than Z did.
Therefore verb is necessary to clear that ambiguity.

These are 2 main errors I found in B.

In 1495, after nearly a century in which they battled against native Guanches more B) more brutally than the occupying Portuguese, the population of the Canary Islands was completely pacified by the Castilians and incorporated into the Kingdom of Castile.

Dear PiyushK & JusTLucK04,
I'm happy to respond.

Both examples cited by PiyushK are perfectly fine. The second is odd only in that is repeats a verb that doesn't need to be repeated --- slightly more wordy that it needs to be. On omitting words in parallel, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/dropping-c ... -the-gmat/

JusTLucK04: two major problems with (B):
1) they [the Castilians] battled against native Guanches more brutally than the occupying Portuguese
This presents classic comparison ambiguity.
A [verb] B "more" [adjective] "than" C
Here, A is the subject and B is the direct object of the verb. The ambiguity is: are we comparing C to the subject A or the object B?
Did the Castilians battle against native Guanches more brutally than the occupying Portuguese battle against Guanches?
or
Did the Castilians battle against native Guanches more brutally than the Castilians battled against the occupying Portuguese?
The structure of (B) leaves this ambiguity. We need the verb after "the occupying Portuguese" so it's clear that they are compared to the subject.
2) The "they" before the underlined section has to refer to "the Castilians," because this is reinforced by the parallel roles these words have in (A). Choices (B) & (C) make "the population of the Canary Islands" the subject of the main clause following the comma, which puts this phrase in parallel with the pronoun, which suggests that the "they" of the first part should be this population, not the Castilians. That changes the meaning from the prompt, and it doesn't even make sense --- the native population would not fight brutally against itself!

Those are two lethal errors in (B). That's why it can't possibly be correct.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Thanks Mike. I appreciate your response.

Eliminate B & C as the Castillians are being modified, not the population of the Canary island.
Eliminate E as the Castillians didn't undergo pacification.

I chose D as its brutality phrase is less awkward than that found in choice A.

Just to add to the discussion the use of than + sub + to be (in this case had been )in the second half of the comparison requires another form of 'to be' in the first part..Missing here

ambiguous comparison:
battled against native guanches more brutally than battled against occupying portuguese
X battled against Y and Z
or
battled against native guanches more brutally than did occupying portugues
X battled Y, and Z battled Y.

A. as explained
B. same error
C. the population of canary island battled...now we have a modifier error. so no
D. looks good, comparison is ok. Portuguese battled against same enemy.
E. same comparison error.

D for me.

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