In the eighteenth century William Shakespeare was regarded as one of

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



THE PROMPT

• Issues tested
→ pronouns

→ idioms
Correct: consider X, Y
Correct but rare (see Notes): consider to be
Correct: regard as
Wrong: Consider as
Wrong: Regard to be

→ adverb v. adjective

(Sidebar: If you know anything at all about Shakespeare, you may have wondered why, according to the author, Shakespeare was a highly admired playwright "in the eighteenth century" rather than, say, "Since the late Renaissance." One influential school of thought argues that for 200 years after Shakespeare's lifetime, he was known primarily as a poet who gained wide acclaim as a playwright only in the late 1700s.)

THE OPTIONS

• I see no issues

• regarded as is acceptable, whereas considered as is not.

• the sentence is clear about the fact that Hart openly questioned the authorship of the works attributed "to Shakespeare."
No pesky pronouns are creating problems.
KEEP


• The correct idiom is Consider X, Y.
→ consider as is incorrect, though consider to be is acceptable. See Notes.
→ The idiom Consider X, Y is constructed this way:
[SUBJECT] considers + noun (X) + noun (Y)
X = Shakespeare
Y = one of the greatest playwrights of all time
→ Option B should say, "Shakespeare (X) was considered one of the greatest playwrights of all time [Y] . . ."

• the word his has two theoretical antecedents (Hart and Shakespeare), but only one logical antecedent (Shakespeare).
No pronoun ambiguity exists, but option B is not as clear as option A.

→ True, Hart and Shakespeare are both theoretical antecedents for his.
But we know that Joseph C. Hart was not questioning the authorship of books written by Joseph C. Hart.
An author would not question whether he wrote his own books. Hart was questioning books written by Shakespeare.
A pronoun is not ambiguous if it has only one logical antecedent.

→ Although we cannot eliminate (B) based on pronoun ambiguity, we can compare option B to A.
In option A, Hart questions the authorship of the works attributed to Shakespeare
In option B, Hart questions his works.
Option A is clearer.
ELIMINATE B


• who the heck is they? No antecedent exists for they.

• considered . . . as is not idiomatic.

• explicit should be explicitly
→ explicit is an adjective that might describe a clearly-written set of instructions.
→ we need explicitly, the adverb, in order to describe the way in which Hart raised questions about Shakespeare's work.

• his is pure babble.
As written, this part makes it seem that Hart questioned Hart's authorship of Shakespeare's works.
Although antecedents can be placed after the pronoun, logic must be clear.
→ Correction: Hart first explicitly question[ed] the authorship of Shakespeare’s works.
That option is a hot mess.
ELIMINATE C

• considered to be is acceptable. See Notes.

• greater should be greatest
→ we use the comparative, greater, when we discuss two playwrights.
→ we use the superlative, greatest, when we discuss more than two playwrights. "Of all time" includes more than two playwrights.

• Shakespeare's authorship of the works attributed to him is strained.
Why not the authorship of Shakespeare's works?

• The word him is problematic, but not because of "possessive poison."
POSSESSIVE POISON IS NOT AN IRONCLAD RULE.
I wrote a well-researched post about the fact that GMAC allows both a subject (he, she) and object (him, her) pronoun to refer to a possessive noun.
You can read that post here.
→ Him is problematic because it is illogical. Don't waste time on this issue if you understand that greater is fatal.
→ If you truly faced options A and D after eliminating other options, you could use this potentially ambiguous his to tip the balance towards option A.
ELIMINATE D

• regarded to be is not idiomatic.
→ idioms for regard and consider (they "swap" what is correct)
Wrong: Regard X, Y
Wrong: Regard to be X
Correct: Regard as X

Correct: Consider X, Y
Okay but rare: Consider to be
Wrong: Consider as X

• Although we still understand that Hart is not questioning Shakepeare's authorship of the works attributed to Hart and that his refers to Shakepeare's, compared to option A, we are working too hard.
ELIMINATE E

The correct answer is A.

NOTES

CONSIDER X Y

On the GMAT, Consider X, Y is tested fairly often.
You will have been told that consider to be is not idiomatic.
That information conflicts with two recent official questions.

Consider to be is not common, but the construction is acceptable.

One official question uses only "consider to be" in all of its answer choices.
That official question is here.
A couple of other official questions use consider to be in the non-underlined portion of the prompt.
You can find one of those official questions by clicking here.]

I know that many sources, including one top-notch SC book, contend that consider to be is suspect or unidiomatic.
When a non-official source conflicts with an official source, the official source wins. Every time. (That top-notch book was wrong about "possessive poison," too. See option D, above.)
The phrase consider to be is used in both the underlined and non-underlined portions of official sentence correction questions.

When someone writes that "consider to be" and "consider as" are unidiomatic on the GMAT, ignore the "consider to be" part.
That fact may have been true at the time the person posted the comment or wrote the book.
If the comment is from late 2017 to the present, then its author is just repeating a belief that no longer holds.
I've linked you to two recent official questions that use consider to be.


COMMENTS

petrichor , welcome to SC Butler.

I am glad to see everyone, including a couple of forum members whose usernames I have not seen in a long time.

Most of these answers are very good: you all are explaining.
There are a few inaccuracies here and there, and no wonder—a couple of issues raised by this question have not been treated consistently in the literature.
So I sent you to the source (the Official Guide).

Students who follow will have an easy time thinking about different approaches to this question.
Nice work.