Bloodletting, the withdrawal of small quantities

it could be C /D as its no clear abt the adverb commonly

Bloodletting, the withdrawal of small quantities of blood from a patient, as a procedure to prevent or cure illnesses, it was commonly performed by physicians until the late 19th century when they realized that it caused more harm than good.

A. as a procedure to prevent or cure illnesses, it was commonly performed (Lack of main verb in the sentence)
B. as a commonly performed procedure to prevent or cure illnesses (same as A)
C. was a commonly performed procedure to prevent or cure illnesses (Procedure was performed by Physicians)
D. was a procedure to prevent or cure illness, commonly performed (correct)
E. had been a commonly performed procedure to prevent or cure illnesses (Same as C)

Kudos please if you like my explanation!

Why not E.

Please someone help me.

B,C,E are eliminated straight away as 'by physicians' at the start of non underlined portion should indicate an action performed. Between A and D, A is incorrect because of the usage of 'as'.
Correct Answer: D

'had' is used when the action is performed before a past action. i.e one past action precedes another. That is not the case here. Simple past tense is enough. Hope it is clear

They in the non underlined part does not make sense. can some expert through some light on this?

Bloodletting, the withdrawal of small quantities of blood from a patient, as a procedure to prevent or cure illnesses, it was commonly performed by physicians until the late 19th century when they realized that it caused more harm than good.

A. as a procedure to prevent or cure illnesses, it was commonly performed
B. as a commonly performed procedure to prevent or cure illnesses
C. was a commonly performed procedure to prevent or cure illnesses
D. was a procedure to prevent or cure illness, commonly performed
E. had been a commonly performed procedure to prevent or cure illnesses


Source: CrackVerbal[/quote]

Can someone from Crackverbal explain:-

Bloodletting, the withdrawal of small quantities of blood from a patient, as a procedure to prevent or cure illnesses, it was commonly performed by physicians until the late 19th century when they realized that it caused more harm than good.
They in the non underlined part refers to whom?
Physicians? if yes then i dont think the same group of physicians were performing the action till 19th Century and realized that it is doing more harm than good.

Is the comma in option D alright...that put me off of this option....

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Not satisfied with the OA. D stresses that the procedure was commonly performed by physicians until late 19th century ---> that means there were others who also used to perform this procedure. The stress is on the doer by placing the modifier before physicians. Whereas, the intended meaning is that until 19th century the procedure was commonly performed by physicians (stress needs to be given at the commonness of the procedure until a time when the physicians realized that the procedure is not safe.)
The OA should be C in my opinion.

Experts, request you to pitch in.

Thanks!

Something happened in 19th Century - Physicians got to know this procedure did more bad than good.
What was happening before that, the procedure was being performed which the Physicians stopped performing.
By this logic, it's Past Perfect Continuous Tense. So the use of 'had been' looks correct?

"was a procedure" intends to say it is no more a procedure. A Procedure is always a procedure, it might be in use or not.
Had D been, was a procedure (used/that was used) to prevent or cure illness, commonly performed - it might removed some ambiguity.

Well, most of the questions are about why options C and E are not correct. One reason I see here is that "to prevent or cure illnesses by physician" seems to give a picture that the illnesses were being given by physicians.

Experts, Please correct me if I am wrong.

I have the same view on this.
1 incident- Action performed by some physicians before 19th century
2. incident- action stopped in 19th century

These are two separate incidents one after another with the action being completely stopped at some point of time and at present we are discussing about the same so had been should be used here.

Regards,
Deepak B

Have changed the answer. I had mistyped E as D. Though your explanation seems correct, I couldn't think of E as the answer because of the error in meaning created by the preposition phrase.

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