The Scandinavian assault on western Europe culminated in the

Hi Jeevan,

Thanks for posting this question here. This indeed is a very interesting SC problem which needs careful analysis. So lets do that.

The Scandinavian assault on Western Europe culminated in the early eleventh century with the Danish conquest of the English kingdom, which other Scandinavian kings attempted to repeat, unsuccessfully, later in the same century.

A. which other Scandinavian kings attempted to repeat, unsuccessfully, later in the same century
B. which other Scandinavian kings attempted to repeat later that same century, but not successfully
C. an achievement that other Scandinavian kings attempted later in the century to repeat, but were not successful at it
D. an achievement attempted later in the century by other Scandinavian kings that was not successful
E. an achievement that other Scandinavian kings attempted to repeat later in the century, but without success

Ans 1: Yes, "which" in options A and B refer to "Danish conquest", a slightly far away noun.

Ans 2: I do agree that in Choice A, the adverb "unsuccessfully" refers to the verb "attempted to repeat". However, I would be a little wary of this choice because "unsuccessfully" is placed between two commas. This placement tells me that this information is not necessary for the meaning of the sentence. Why should the adverb be separated from the verb with comma pairs? Also from the meaning standpoint, this choice says that the attempt itself was made unsuccessfully. The intended meaning is that they tried but did not get success.

Ans 3: Well, "that" does need any reference because it has not been used as a relative pronoun that must have an antecedent. Here "that" has been used to emphasize the fact that the other Scandinavians tried to conquer the English kingdom the very same century. Choice B can be eliminated for the same meaning error that we have in choice A.

Ans 4: One thing that we must understand in this sentence is that "but" here has not been used a coordinating conjunction. Also, the official explanation of many official questions certainly do not match the standard of the quality of the official questions. There are many official explanations that are inappropriate. Choice C is incorrect because of the inclusion of "it".

Per choice C, following is the parallel list:
a. an achievement that other Scandinavian kings attempted later in the century to repeat
b. an achievement that other Scandinavian kings were not successful at it

As you can see, use of "it" is incorrect here because relative pronoun "that" already refers to "an achievement". It is ungrammatical to refer to the same noun entity again by using a pronoun. This is the reason why Choice C is incorrect. Again, "but" here has been used here a parallel marker and not the coordinating conjunctions.

This is the reason why in correct answer Choice E, "but" has been followed by a phrase and a not a clause. Both the phrase "later in the century" and "without success" refer to "attempted to repeat". Both the phrases here act as "adverbs" as they both refer to the same verb phrase "attempted to repeat".

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha