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[sanyalpritish]

At a time when Queen Anne was so ill that she had to be hoisted up between floors of her palace, the Whigs had seized upon their best gambit in the war between the parties and, hovering nervously, Defoe was between upholding the ministry's commitment to the Protestant succession and his own sense of how vital such a commitment must be.
(A) their best gambit in the war between the parties and, hovering nervously, Defoe was between
(B) its best gambit in the war between the parties, and nervously, Defoe hovered either
(C) their best gambit in the war between the parties and Defoe, nervously, hovered between
(D) its best gambit in the war between the parties and Defoe hovered nervously on
(E) their best gambit in the war between the parties, and Defoe hovered nervously between

[manjeet.singh]

I will give it a try:

As whigs is plural, so we need plural verb. Kick out b,c,d.
Left between A and E.
A is not parallel as we need verb, hence E is better

what is OA? is it E

[xcusemeplz2009]

i wud say the sub is The whigs and hence a singular therefore we need its rather than their,
only B and D does so ; however B uses a incorrect idiom either....and
so D sud be an ans
Oa pls

[samarpan.bschool]

I will go with E. (though i am confused between A and E).

In E, the second clause 'defoe was between...' is properly set off by COMMA + AND (co-ordinating conjunction)

[parthatayi]

Is the OA E.

As the subject Whigs is plural, we can rule out B and D.
A is ruled out because of the improper usage of ",+ing" modifier.
C is incorrect because the adverb nervously wrongly modifies a noun.

hence OA is E.

[tim]

This is a good prank xcuse, but you're just not going to convince anyone that you thought "the Whigs" was singular. So of course we get rid of B/D immediately because of the pronoun. Then Defoe is the subject for a second independent clause, which will require something like a semicolon or a comma-conjunction in order to work. This gets rid of A/C. Regardless of what the OA is, E is correct.. :)