Dear Friends,
Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
Bunuel wrote:
The visiting pharmacologists concluded that the present amalgam of Chinese and Western medicine is probably as good, or better than, any system that might be devised for the patients who are treated at the Nan Kai hospital in Tian-jing.
(A) as good, or better than, any system that might be devised for the patients who are
(B) as good, or better, than any system that might be devised for patients being
(C) as good, or better than, any system that might be devised for patients which are being
(D) good as, or even better than, any other system that may be devised for the patients who are
(E) as good as, or better than, any other system that might be devised for the patients
Concepts tested here: Pronouns + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy• “as A as B” is correct, idiomatic usage.
• The pronoun “which” cannot be used to refer to a human being.
• “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.
A: This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “as A…than B”; remember, “as A as B” is correct, idiomatic usage. Further, the sentence formed by Option A uses the needlessly wordy phrase “who are treated”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.
B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “as A…than B”; remember, “as A as B” is correct, idiomatic usage. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the word “being”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy; remember, “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.
C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “as A…than B”; remember, “as A as B” is correct, idiomatic usage. Further, Option C incorrectly uses “which” to refer to the noun “patients”; please remember, the pronoun “which” cannot be used to refer to a human being. Additionally, the sentence formed by Option C incorrectly uses the word “being”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy; remember, “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.
D: The sentence formed by this answer choice uses the needlessly wordy phrase “who are treated”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.
E: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the idiomatic construction “as A…as B”. Further, Option E avoids the pronoun error seen in Option C, as it uses no pronouns. Additionally, the sentence formed by Option E is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.
Hence, E is the best answer choice.To understand the concept of "Being" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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