That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a na

Question

That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said that it is uncontested : In A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn tells the story of the United States as a series of violent struggles between oppressed groups and the country's economic and political elites.

A. That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said that it is uncontested

B. That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's marching toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said to be uncontested

C. It can hardly be said uncontested that the history of the American Republic is largely the story of the nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress

D. It can hardly be said to be uncontested that the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress

E. The history of the American Republic as largely the story of a nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said to be an uncontested one

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said that it is uncontested : In A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn tells the story of the United States as a series of violent struggles between oppressed groups and the country's economic and political elites.

A. That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said that it is uncontested

Incorrect.

This answer choice is grammatically incorrect and non-idiomatic. The verb + relative clause  be said that ...  cannot logically follow anything except a general 'It' subject, otherwise it creates a grammatical redundancy:

Incorrect: The idea can hardly be said that it is uncontested
Correct: It can hardly be said that the idea is uncontested (It subject)
Correct: The idea can hardly be said to be uncontested (standard subject)

However, in this sentence the subject is (the idea)  That the history of the American Republic is largely ... liberty and progress.

In addition, the pronoun  it  is also ambiguous.  It  can either serve as the subject of a clause that has no natural subject (such as "it is raining" or "it is warm") or to refer to a noun. In this sentence it is not clear what it is meant to refer to, leading to a confusing sentence.

B. That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's marching toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said to be uncontested

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the original grammatical mistake, it creates a new one. Verb+ing ( marching ) can be used as a noun replacement only when there's no actual noun. Since there is a real noun -  march  - it should be used.

C. It can hardly be said uncontested that the history of the American Republic is largely the story of the nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the original grammatical mistake, it changes the meaning of the original sentence.

In the original sentence  uncontested  referred to the concept of American history. However, in this answer choice uncontested refers to the act of saying that concept. Compare the following:

It can hardly be said uncontested that X  (uncontested is an adverb, describing said)

X can hardly be said to be uncontested  (uncontested is an adjective, describing X)

In the first example (similar to this answer choice) it's hard to say X without being contested, whereas in the second (similar to the original sentence) it's hard to say X is uncontested.

D. It can hardly be said to be uncontested that the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress

This answer choice corrects the original grammatical mistake by rearranging the sentence structure and changing  X can be said that it is  to  X can be said to be .

E. The history of the American Republic as largely the story of a nation's march toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said to be an uncontested one

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the original grammatical mistake, it is stylistically flawed. The phrase  can hardly be said to be an uncontested one  is wordy and redundant.

Carcass · Answer

As a prepositional phrase, we do need the one that finishes with "a destiny of liberty and progress" to introduce the main sentence

Between C and D, the latter has a better construction but is a bit wordy.

It can hardly  be  said  to be  uncontested that .

However it is better than C

It can hardly be said uncontested

D is the answer

Sumi1010 · Answer

carcass  
I am curious to know why choice B is incorrect. 
Is not "That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's marching toward a destiny of liberty and progress" a noun-clause ? If so, the noun-clause can act as subject ( say X). 
The sentence turns out to :  X can hardly be said to be uncontested. 
This looks fine to me.

Please help me understand.

Carcass · Answer

First off

B is wrong because

B. That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a nation's marching toward a destiny of liberty and progress can hardly be said to be uncontested

Can blah blah highlighted above refer to liberty ?? progress ?' Or back to the American r. ?? Not so clear

Secondly

Usually a noun clause, which is a clause that could act as a big subject begins with words such as how, that, what, whatever, when, where, whether, which, whichever, who, whoever, whom, whomever, and why

So the clause with that at the very beginning I do not believe is a noun clause

To make clear: Someone says the usage of that is NOT fine at the beginning because, for instance, is more British E. and the GMAT is a test of US E.

That said, For me is fine: a noun clause CAN begging with that but the problem is a simple form, with a single verb.

This sentence is TOO long and convoluted for that role as a noun

A noun sentence should be in the form

Whoever thought of that idea is a genius

D instead is good as a sentence.

Sumi1010 · Answer

Thanks  carcass ,

I got this official problem on  WHAT-noun clause  :  https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-period-when-the-great-painted-caves-at-lascaux-and-altamira-were-93734.html

However, I got this query because i have seen such problems on  THAT-Noun clause 
For instance, this one by  mikemcgarry   https://gmatclub.com/forum/that-the-fifth-lateran-council-1512-1517-had-it-addressed-the-141181.html . 
I have not got anything to confirm that GMAT has ever tested on THAT-Noun clause

Carcass · Answer

Frankly, At the beginning, I was picky in the same manner.

Every nuance, every detail.....

Then I did realize the most important thing is to understand the big picture, the whole meaning and that the sentence sound correct. And move on.

it is just a test. You need to pick them correctly.

You do not need to be a linguist from Oxford

Regards

BhaveshGMAT · Answer

Can you explain this part in a little more detail? What I understand from above is a colon should logically connect parts before and after it. And what is with the prepositional phrase ending the sentence?

VerbalBot · Answer

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That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a na

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That the history of the American Republic is largely the story of a na

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