Unlike the team of lawyers working for the petitioner, whose argument

I wasted some seconds in understanding what "recently passed Congress" mean
So by the way what does "recently passed Congress" mean?

The "unlike" in this argument shows that there is a parallelism issue with what two things are "unlike" This is further compounded by the use of a descriptive phrase in between the two unlike things.

It is clear that the government's argument is unlike the petitioner's argument and since government is not underlined, this eliminates A and B for parallel comparison problems.

The next clear error is a pronoun error - the sentence gives you the option of "which" or "whose" whose is appropriate for people, not for arguments therefore D is eliminated for a bad pronoun.

The decision between C and E comes down to the placement of "only" This is a tricky adverb because it is very specific in what it modifies. in C it clearly modifies recently implying that up until recently it had not passed congress.

in E) it modifies passed - which means it only passed Congress (implying that there are other things it could have passed) To preserve the meaning of the sentence you would pick C as the correct answer.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

There are two main issues being tested in this sentence.

(1) When using like or unlike, you must compare like parts (e.g., compare arguments with arguments). The original sentence improperly compares the team of lawyers with the government's argument.

(2) The expression , which modifies the term that is immediately before it. For example, the phrase the argument from the petitioner, which rested on a questionable interpretation of a bill that only recently passed Congress is incorrect since it was not the petitioner that rested on a questionable interpretation, but rather the argument that rested on a questionable interpretation.

A. the sentence illogically and improperly compares unlike parts (i.e., it compares the team of lawyers with the government's argument)

B. the phrase the argument from the petitioner, which rested on a questionable interpretation of a bill that only recently passed Congress is incorrect since it was not the petitioner that rested on a questionable interpretation, but rather the argument that rested on a questionable interpretation

C. the sentence properly compares like parts (i.e., it compares the petitioner's argument with the government's argument); , which rested on... properly and logically modifies the phrase it follows

D. the phrase whose case rested on is illogical since whose (which should modify a person) is actually modifying an argument

E. the original sentence, which reads a bill that only recently passed Congress, is perniciously changed to a new sentence, which reads a bill that recently only passed Congress; the difference in meaning between a bill that recently only passed Congress (meaning it did not become law) and a bill that only recently passed Congress (meaning it passed Congress a short time ago) is significant

Hello @Abhimaha Bunuel AjiteshArun egmat Can you please explain why B is wrong?
I thought that there is a prepositional phrase present before which, therefore 'which' can refer to the 'argument' and thus went ahead with option B.
Moreover the split - recently passed vs only passed recently is also correct in B.

Thanks in advance.

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