OFFICIAL EXPLANATION[This post is duplicated. Its twin is down thread.]
Project SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC1)
For SC butler Questions Click HereIn the Scopes Trial in 1925,
three-time Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, who opposed evolution on religious grounds, argued that evolution not be taught in public schools, while famed trial lawyer Clarence Darrow argued that it be.
A) three-time Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, who opposed evolution on religious grounds, argued that evolution not be taught in public schools, while famed trial lawyer Clarence Darrow argued that it be
B) three-time Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan opposed evolution on the grounds of religion and also argued that evolution should not be taught in public schools, but
that evolution should be taught in public schools was argued by Clarence Darrow, who was a famous trial lawyer
C) William Jennings Bryan, who
had run for President three times and who
had opposed evolution on religious grounds,
had argued against the teaching of evolution in public schools, while Clarence Darrow, a famous trial lawyer,
had argued
with it
D) William Jennings Bryan, who ran for President three times, opposed evolution on the grounds of religion,
as he argued that evolution should not be taught in public schools, Clarence Darrow, a famous trial lawyer,
had argued for it
E) William Jennings Bryan, who had run for President three times, opposing evolution on religious grounds, argued
against the teaching of evolution in public schools,
although famous trial lawyer Clarence Darrow argued
that it should be[/quote]
MAGOOSH EXPLANATION[My annotations are in blue typeface.][This question is] about the famous Scopes trial, which pitted William Jennings Bryan against Clarence Darrow.
As
was the case in the famous trial, this sentence should show contrast between the two sides.
Choice (A): this choice clearly states Bryan's view, correctly using the subjunctive in the first "that" clause and in the "that" clause for Darrow. This second "that" clause elegantly drops the common words in parallel
[that is, the sentence contains something called "ellipsis"].
Choice (B): This is very wordy, the longest answer. It redundantly spells out Darrow's opinion, repeating many words just used, and states the second clause in the passive, making it even longer and meandering. This is a complete train wreck. This choice is incorrect.
Choice (C): Every single verb is in the past perfect tense
[HAD + PAST PARTICIPLE (verbED)]:
This
[verb] is illogical, because the past perfect tense only makes sense in comparison to something in the simple past tense.
Also, the final part has the wrong idiom.
If we say "A argued for X," then we know that A was an advocate of X.
By contrast, if we say, "A argued with X," then it sounds
as though A was an opponent of X.
The structure here suggests that Darrow was an opponent of evolution, so he would have been agreeing with Bryan: then, nothing about the sentence makes sense! This choice is incorrect.
Choice (D): The logic of the "as" clause is unclear.
Also, this sentence has a comma splice: that is, it separates the two independent clauses with only a comma, and there's no conjunction properly joining them.
Finally, it's unclear why Darrow's verb is in the past perfect tense, since the two men were there having the argument at the same time. This choice is incorrect.
Choice (E): the "although" is jarring as a contrast word here.
The contrast words "but" and "while" connote powerful contrast: "Mike argued yes, but Chris argued no." BAM!
The word "although" is softer, suggesting that there's something we didn't expect about the difference.
These expectations don't fit the subject matter.
Also, the parallelism is faulty.
The first branch has "the teaching of evolution" and the second branch has "that it should be."
That final phrase is waiting for a verb, but there's not a full verb in the first branch, only a gerund—if we substituted that in, it would make no sense: "that it should be the teaching of evolution ..." This choice is incorrect.
The only possible answer is (A).
COMMENTSzhanbo , although
argue does not often trigger the command subjunctive, when
argue means something similar to
insist, it can and does take the command subjunctive. More importantly, Mike McGarry of
Magoosh, who wrote this question, did not make
argue a decision point.
If you want to challenge, please present evidence.
desertEagle , welcome to SC Butler.
We are glad to have your participation.
You all did good work. Well done.