What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush str

Question

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What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush strokes  in the many sketches and watercolors van Gogh produced in his ten short years as an artist has been the continued popularity of his letter sketches.

A) What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush strokes

B) The thing that was as remarkable as developing his distinctive brush strokes

C) No less remarkable than the development of his distinctive brush strokes

D) Developing his distinctive brush strokes has been none the less remarkable than

E) Development of his distinctive brush strokes has been no less remarkable as

generis · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Project SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC1)

I have mentioned before that GMAC likes to deploy long prepositional phrases (or long noun descriptors) in order to throw you off your game.

Well, first, don't get thrown. Get even. 
You can wade through this veritable sea of words: 
 . . . in the many sketches and watercolors van Gogh produced in his ten short years as an artist . . .

Eliminate words and paraphrase.
→ in the many   sketches and watercolors     van Gogh produced   in his ten short years as an artist   
Here is the sentence, stripped:
→  What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush strokes  in the many paintings van Gogh produced has been the continued popularity of his letter sketches.

Second, notice  as remarkable as . 
Those italicized words are comparison words.
Skim the other answers quickly to see whether they, too, contain comparison words.
Yes. We see  than  in options C and D, and  as  in options B and E.

→  as ______ as  and    than  tell us that we are comparing two things.
Those items must be parallel.

The part of the comparison in the non-underlined portion dictates the form of the first part of the comparison.

• Split #1: comparison parallelism

The non-underlined portion of the comparison is  the continued popularity of his letter sketches. 
The underlined part about van Gogh's brush strokes must match that grammatical form.
→  The development of  is parallel to  the popularity of:  we can eliminate options B and D, both of which use  developing .

→ That is, options B and D use   developing  his distinctive brush strokes  as the first part of the comparison.
 Developing  is not parallel to  popularity .
Developing is a gerund, a verb- like  noun (a verbING). It is not a "regular" or dedicated noun that resembles  popularity .

In addition,  a dedicated noun exists,  one that we see in options A, C, and D: (the)  development  (of).

(I fixed the typo in option B, which originally said "develop." Neither  develop  nor  developing  is parallel to  popularity .)
ELIMINATE B and D

• Split #2: Idiom error

We can say  as remarkable as  or  no less remarkable than  (no less . . . than).
We cannot say  no less remarkable  as  .
Option E uses that incorrect construction.
(Option D, already eliminated, also fails idiomatically.  None the less remarkable than  is absolute babble in English.  None the less  is one idiom.  No less remarkable than  is another idiom. (D) botches both.)
ELIMINATE E

• Split #3: Verb tense parallelism

Option A pairs  was  (past tense) and  has been  (present perfect tense).
(Option B, already eliminated, does the same thing.)

At first, the verb tense shift may not seem problematic.
In many cases, we can shift verbs and maintain parallelism.
But parallelism is also grounded in logic.
In option A, essentially we have
→ What was remarkable . . . has been remarkable.
The non-underlined portion places us—and correct answer C—squarely in the present.

So let's say that option A still looks very tempting.

The verb tense in (A) shift is not necessary. That shift is confusing.  
Vincent van Gogh's letters continue to be popular in the present.
That popularity has been remarkable and is still remarkable.
Similarly, the development of van Gogh's brush strokes has been and is still remarkable.

Option A should state, "What has been just as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush strokes has been the continued popularity of van Gogh's letters." (We could also get away with "What is just as remarkable. . ..")

Both remarkable things are still remarkable.

Finally, if you cannot eliminate (A) on its own, compare (A) to (C).

Option C avoids the verb problem entirely. Avoiding problems entirely is a good idea.
Option C is better than option A.
ELIMINATE A

The correct answer is C.

This inverted structure is a challenge, but if we eliminate the four worst answers rather than searching for one best answer, we find that this question sorts itself out.

SPOILER ALERT:  The official question on which this question is modeled can be found  here .

COMMENTS

tyildirim92  , your comment about option C is funny. And true.

kush09  , I liked the way that you pointed out that "van Gogh's 'development of distinctive brush strokes' is compared with 'popularity of his letter sketches.'"

agar123  , you asked a good question, one that many people wondered about. Well done.

KaramveerBakshi  , thank you for responding. Wanting to help is generous.

All four of you get kudos.

gmat1393 · Answer

generis  are you missing a comma in the sentence?

tyildirim92 · Answer

What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush strokes  in the many sketches and watercolors van Gogh produced in his ten short years as an artist, has been the continued popularity of his letter sketches.

A) What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush strokes // remove the modifier. "What was has been..." what a strange sentence.

B) The thing that was as remarkable as develop his distinctive brush strokes // the same as in A. moreover, "the thing" and "develop" is not parallel.

C) No less remarkable than the development of his distinctive brush strokes // a sexy poetic sentence.

D) Developing his distinctive brush strokes has been none the less remarkable than // a complete mess. two "has been" in the same sentence.

E) Development of his distinctive brush strokes has been no less remarkable as // "less" requires "than", not "as"

Posted from my mobile device

kush09 · Answer

Meaning: van Gogh "development of distinctive brush strokes" are compared with "popularity of his letter sketches"

A)  What  was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush strokes
 -- comparison is better shown in C.

B) The  thing  that was as remarkable as  develop  his distinctive brush strokes
 -- comparison is not conveyed appropriately, also, not clear what "thing" is pointing to

C) No less remarkable than the development of his distinctive brush strokes
 -- I found most appropriate.

D) Developing his distinctive brush strokes has been none the less  remarkable than 
 -- messes up the meaning.

E) Development of his distinctive brush strokes has been no less  remarkable as  
 -- messes up the meaning.

generis · Answer

gmat1393 , no, but I can understand why you might think so. The comma that exists in the non-underlined portion is placed there for clarity. In that sense, it follows Rule 11 from this good source, here.* At the same time, the comma breaks Rule 12 of that source. The original author of the sentence inserted the comma to prevent confusion, a motivation that typically trumps all other comma rules because clarity is of utmost importance. If you all see commas in other sentences in places they should not typically be, you are witnessing another instance of that same situation.** I thought about removing the comma when I posted the question but decided to let it stand. I'll remove the comma and see whether doing so wreaks havoc. Just know that the correct answer does not turn on that comma's presence or absence.

*The source I provided draws from major style manuals such as CMOS and MLA, both of which are used in B school, though professors sometimes use other style guides. (Google the acronyms.) The source also follows the 1600+ page CGEL by Quirk et al. [1991(1985)]. See Appendix III.09, p.1620.

**(The other possibility is that you are seeing a somewhat rare list, something such as
A, B, C, and D, as well as E.
The Oxford comma that is preceded by the word "and" always tells you where the last totally parallel item in a list is. , and D = Oxford comma plus last list item. Item E in this case is less important than the other items or needs to be de-emphasized. That construction is rare and typically seen only in very hard questions.)

agar123 · Answer

Can someone please explain why A is wrong? Both A and C are the close contenders, on what basis we have chosen C?

Regards,
agar123

KaramveerBakshi · Answer

" has been  the continued" in the underlined portion needs to have a proper Subject.

Also, has been and was aren't parallel.

I hope this helps!

generis · Answer

The official explanation is  here .

gmat1393 · Answer

Thank you  generis  for taking the time and sharing the knowledge!
Really appreciate

Crytiocanalyst · Answer

(A) What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush strokes
Tense issues otherwise quite a tempting option

B) The thing that was as remarkable as developing his distinctive brush strokes
Parallelism error due to the use of developing for comparison in popularity

C) No less remarkable than the development of his distinctive brush strokes
This has the parallelism correct so let us hang on to it

D) Developing his distinctive brush strokes has been none the less remarkable than
developing isn't the right use of parallelism for popularity and nonethless idiomatic error

E) Development of his distinctive brush strokes has been no less remarkable as
This has a idiom error no less remarkable should be nonethless 
 
It was really a tough call between A and C i went with C for the pure reason it was more consise 
Hence IMO C

VerbalBot · Answer

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What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush str

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

What was as remarkable as the development of his distinctive brush str

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