clearly I had to choose between A and B..
ya B for me ..

Thing with this one is that each is ambiguous. It can refer either to the texts or to the languages. That's why B is the best answer choice here

Please use the freaking underline!!

Hope this clarifies
J

in a Aux verb Were is incorrect " they were written as X decipherable only by Y
Whereas in C,D & E phrase puzzle of ten..........changes the actual meaning.

Please underline the part in question. Difficult to analyze a question without knowing what is fixed and what can change!
_________________

Here's my take. Without the comma and "of" the modifiers change the meaning of what the puzzle actually is. Does the puzzle only have ten messages or is there one with more than ten? Surely, the word "complex" is how I knew "with" is better. "Of" conveys what is consists of, nothing else; whereas, "with" conveys something in addition to. "Decipherable" is a noun modifier which refers to puzzle, and no verb is needed because it's a noun modifier. As long as noun modifiers are logical and without ambiguity, then they can be placed anywhere in the sentence.

1.’had’ is past perfect. This implies that even before the puzzles were written, advanced code breakers solved them. This is nonsense. Eliminate C&D
2. D Parallelism Error. Eliminate.
3.’were’ creates a run on. Two verbs are used. You need to use ‘were X and were Y’ Hence Eliminate A.
4. B is correct.

Al

Meaning wise, this topic is a disaster, with so many ambiguities and uncertainties. A book can contain only one last page, not several last pages. One must use “the last few pages” if several passages are intended.
Actually what are decipherable are the encrypted messages and not the pages or the languages. Even in the most grammatically correct choice B, the topic messes up this fact by using an adjectival modifier that may modify the subject of the sentence namely pages or the object of the preposition, namely the languages, because of proximity.
To say that the pages comprised a brainteaser because they were written in a puzzle does not convey much meaning.
On the grammar side, the picture is somewhat clear, thankfully.
A is a fragment with two verbs for a subject; B is acceptable C and E mess up the meaning with the wrong use of past perfect and D missing the symmetrical parallelism on either side of the ‘and’ .
_________________

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.
_________________