Official Solution:

Choose the sentence with properly used idiom (emphasized with boldface). Please note that a wrong answer choice may be grammatically correct.

A. The ancient Chinese Taoists distinguished intercourse and orgasm.
B. The ancient Chinese Taoists distinguished intercourse from orgasm.
C. The ancient Chinese Taoists distinguished between intercourse and orgasm.
D. All of the above
E. None of the above



Answer: C
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Distinction Rule:
Distinction between X and Y: used when X and Y are two very different things/items.
Distinction X from Y: used when X and Y are two pretty similar things/items.

Distinguished between A and B

Distinguished between A and B is used when the two are not similar i.e. The child tried to distinguish between apples and oranges.

Distinguish A from B is used when the two are kind of similar things but we are focusing more on A (how is A different from B?)

I am not very sure how important the difference is but I have read it somewhere that its a very fine line between these two idioms. So may be search for some other error.

mike and GMATNinja can you please help explain the distinction between the two idioms?
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I think this is a poor-quality question and the explanation isn't clear enough, please elaborate. Distinguished between A and B; distinguished A from B. Both should be OK, can you please clarify the answer?

I think this is testing the idion "ability to" instead of "distinguish" and hence the answer. "ability (of some children) to distinguish" and "ability to make"
The question incorrectly uses this idiom as "ability for"

Distinguish between used for totally different objects i.e. cars and scooters
Distinguish from used for when someone makes a distinction between two objects which is usually not made i.e. X distinguishes an iphone 6 from phone 6s

I think this is a poor-quality question and I agree with explanation.