The genius of Beethoven can be seen in the widely observed phenomenon

Question

The genius of Beethoven can be seen in the widely observed phenomenon that his music has the same appeal to an illiterate shepherd wandering the steppes of  Kazakhstan as to  a professional musician sipping her latte in Paris.

A. Kazakhstan as to

B. Kazakhstan, just as to

C. Kazakhstan; just as it would to a

D. Kazakhstan, as it would to a

E. Kazakhstan as a

Source:  McGraw-Hill's GMAT

ExpertsGlobal5 · Accepted Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Choice A:  This answer choice maintains proper comparison and tense use, conveys the intended meaning of the sentence, and is quite concise. Thus, this answer choice is correct.

Choice B:  The use of "just as", in this answer choice, is unnecessary and makes the sentence needlessly wordy. Thus, this answer choice is not a very good one.

Choice C:  This answer choice incorrectly utilizes the future tense, rather than the simple present tense, while describing a universal truth; doing so also leads to a parallelism break with "had". Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Choice D:  This answer choice repeats the tense-related error found in Option C. Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Choice E:  This answer choice suffers from a meaning error, as it compares "the same appeal" to "a professional musician" due to the omission of the verb "to".

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses on GMAT", you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZj-SubJwsM

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Kurtosis · Answer

Idiom used: Same to X as to Y

Eliminate B, C, D and E.

Answer: A

brs1cob · Answer

what is the difference between option A and D ?

abhishekdadarwal2009 · Answer

The genius of Beethoven can be seen in the widely observed phenomenon that his
music has the same appeal to an illiterate shepherd wandering the steppes of
Kazakhstan as to a professional musician sipping her latte in Paris.

A. Kazakhstan as to 
 B. Kazakhstan, just as to
C. Kazakhstan; just as it would to a
D. Kazakhstan, as it would to a
E. Kazakhstan as a

Concept:parallelism/Comparison
Idiom:to X as to Y

List:
to an illiterate shepherd
to a professional musician

A is the correct choice.
Option B,C,D, and E are non parallel.

Abhishek009 · Answer

IMHO (D) is wordy and hence non parallel...

Correct idiomatic & parallelism usage is -  Same to X as to Y

Sahil01 · Answer

The genius of Beethoven can be seen in the widely observed phenomenon that his
music has the same appeal to an illiterate shepherd wandering the steppes of
 Kazakhstan as to  a professional musician sipping her latte in Paris.

A. Kazakhstan as to ->  "to an illiterate shepherd" PARALLEL with "to a professional musician", CORRECT option 
B. Kazakhstan, just as to ->  "just as" is not required, "as" is sufficient 
C. Kazakhstan; just as it would to a ->  ; should follow with a statement that could stand on its own, that is not the case here 
D. Kazakhstan, as it would to a ->  what is "it" referring to and why use "would" here 
E. Kazakhstan as a ->  illogical, not required to dissect this option

Nunuboy1994 · Answer

x as to y

A

lostnumber · Answer

D is not necessarily incorrect in my opinion, but it is wordier and clearly less appealing stylistically. A is the best answer

AkshdeepS · Answer

A. Kazakhstan as to

B. Kazakhstan,  just  as to

C. Kazakhstan;  just as it would  to a

D. Kazakhstan,  as it would  to a

E. Kazakhstan as a

A is the clear winner.

E is out for wrong comparison.

B, C, and D are out for using "it", an ambiguous pronoun.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Official Explanation

A  is grammatically correct and reflects standard English usage of the construction  “  is the same to X as to Y.”  The other options are all less idiomatic than  A , so  A  is the best answer.

ANSWER: A

The genius of Beethoven can be seen in the widely observed phenomenon

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The genius of Beethoven can be seen in the widely observed phenomenon

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