In court society, the awareness of social distinctions and [u]knowing

Question

In court society, the awareness of social distinctions and  knowing how to restrain one's behavior in the presence of nobility, a skill which was assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and formal instruction , led to the refinements associated with the modern notion of civilization.

A. knowing how to restrain one's behavior in the presence of nobility, a skill which was assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and formal instruction

B. to know how to restrain one's behavior in the presence of nobility, skills which were assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and with formal instruction

C. restrained behavior in the presence of nobility, a skill assiduously inculcated through observing, imitating, and formal instructing

D. the knowledge about how one should restrain one's behavior in nobility's presence, a skill assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and formal instruction

E. the knowledge of how to restrain one's behavior in the presence of nobility, a skill which was assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and formal instruction

100mitra · Answer

Eliminate : A, B, and C lacks parallelism and intended meaning error.

Pending with D, and E

Eliminate D  flaw in intended meaning and parallelism

D.In court society, 
 the awareness of  social distinctions and 
 the knowledge about  ( how one should restrain one's behavior in nobility's presence ), 
 a skill assiduously  inculcated through 
observation, 
imitation, and 
formal instruction 
led to the refinements associated with the modern notion of civilization

Correct Option E  correct Parallelism and intended meaning.
E.In court society, 
 the awareness of  social distinctions and 
 the knowledge of  how to restrain  one's behavior in the presence of nobility , 
a skill which was assiduously inculcated through 
observation, 
imitation, and 
formal instruction 
led to the refinements associated with the modern notion of civilization

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ManmeetK · Answer

i think the correct one is B as it is the only one covering both points (awareness and knowledge) as part of the rest of non underlined sentence.

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

In court society, the awareness of social distinctions and  knowing how to restrain one's behavior in the presence of nobility, a skill which was assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and formal instruction , led to the refinements associated with the modern notion of civilization.

A. knowing how to restrain one's behavior in the presence of nobility, a skill which was assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and formal instruction

Incorrect.

This answer choice is grammatically incorrect. The construction  A and B (awareness and knowing)  requires that A and B belong to the same part of speech. In this case, A ( awareness ) is a noun whereas B ( knowing ) is a non-conjugated verb.

What helps us identify this question as a Parallelism question as well as identify the mistake is the following Stop Sign: A  and/or/but  B

When you identify this structure, make sure it follows these rules:

1. A and B must be of the same part of speech.
2. A and B must be logically parallel.

B. to know how to restrain one's behavior in the presence of nobility, skills which were assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and with formal instruction

Incorrect.

This answer choice is grammatically incorrect. The construction  A and B (awareness and to know)  requires that A and B belong to the same part of speech. In this case, A ( awareness ) is a noun whereas B ( to know ) is a non-conjugated verb.

In addition, this answer choice unnecessarily changes the original meaning of the sentence by changing the singular noun  skill  to the plural noun  skills . This implies that awareness and  to know  are  both   skills , when in fact only  to know how to restrain one's behavior  is a  skill , as written in the original answer choice.

A  skill  is the knowledge of  how to do  something, but  awareness of social distinctions  is not knowledge of  how to do  something and is therefore not really a  skill . Note how the meaning change results an illogical answer choice.

C. restrained behavior in the presence of nobility, a skill assiduously inculcated through observing, imitating, and formal instructing

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the Parallelism mistake in the original sentence by changing the verb  knowing (how to restrain one's behavior)  to a noun ( restrained )  behavior , this change creates a new logical mistake. In the corrected sentence, the word  awareness relates  to both items of the parallelism. However,  awareness of...restrained behavior  does not make sense.

In addition, the corrected sentence unnecessarily changes the list of nouns  observation, imitation and instruction to observing, imitating, and formal instructing . While the resulting list is grammatically parallel and therefore appears to be correct, it violates the rule that when a simple noun form exists it should not be changed to a to V+ing form serving as a noun replacement. This is considered a mistake that should be eliminated in Sentence Correction questions.

D. the knowledge about how one should restrain one's behavior in nobility's presence, a skill assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and formal instruction

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the Parallelism mistake in the original sentence by changing the verb  knowing (how to restrain one's behavior)  to a noun  knowledge (about how one should, etc.) , it introduces a new grammatical mistake. The form of the possession  the presence of nobility  is correct, while the form  nobility's presence  is incorrect.

Remember that expressing possession by using  of  is always allowed, whereas expressing possession using 's is only allowed with concrete (that is, tangible, or not abstract) nouns.  Nobility  is an abstract noun.

Incorrect: love's power
Correct: the power of love

E. the knowledge of how to restrain one's behavior in the presence of nobility, a skill which was assiduously inculcated through observation, imitation, and formal instruction

What helps us identify this question as a Parallelism question as well as identify the mistake is the following Stop Sign: A  and/or/but  B

When you identify this structure, make sure it follows these rules:

1. A and B must be of the same part of speech.
2. A and B must be logically parallel.

This answer choice corrects the Parallelism mistake in the original sentence by changing the non-conjugated verb  knowing  to the noun  knowledge .

In court society, the awareness of social distinctions and [u]knowing

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

In court society, the awareness of social distinctions and [u]knowing

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

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From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards