Thomas Eakins' powerful style and his choices of

[prashant.jakhetiya]

Thomas Eakins' powerful style and his choices of subject--the advances in modern surgery, the discipline of sport, the strains of individuals in tension with society or even with themselves--was as disturbing to his
own time as it is compelling for ours.

(A) was as disturbing to his own time as it is
(B) were as disturbing to his own time as they are
(C) has been as disturbing in his own time as they are
(D) had been as disturbing in his own time as it was
(E) have been as disturbing in his own time as


I marked E, why present perfect is wrong here.

[sunny.jain]

IMO:B

style and choices of subject --> plural subject
so
A,C, and D are out.

Comparison:

were as disturbing to X as

disturbing is modifying the subject --> style and choices
so we need a similar subject after "as"

Clear winner is B.

[RonPurewal]

Thomas Eakins' powerful style and his choices of subject--the advances in modern surgery, the discipline of sport, the strains of individuals in tension with society or even with themselves--was as disturbing to his
own time as it is compelling for ours.

(A) was as disturbing to his own time as it is
(B) were as disturbing to his own time as they are
(C) has been as disturbing in his own time as they are
(D) had been as disturbing in his own time as it was
(E) have been as disturbing in his own time as


I marked E, why present perfect is wrong here.

i HATE this problem. in standard english usage, "disturbing to X" is usually used only when X is a person whose sensibilities have been disturbed. so this sentence appears to imply that the time period itself was offended.

but that's the problem with the gmat: they make the rules, so you just have to nod your head and say "ok".

--

"have been" implies that those disturbances (or their effects) still continue to this day. that's not true - the sentence implies that the disturbance existed only in that time period - so the present perfect doesn't make sense.

[velascojh]

Ron,

What about the comment made by sunny.jain that a subject (they) is needed after as ?

Could you please clarify that. Thank you.

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

What about the comment made by sunny.jain that a subject (they) is needed after as ?

Could you please clarify that. Thank you.

since the tense changes - from "were" to "are" - you need a new clause. you can't just have a verb without a subject; hence the requirement of "they".

[devneeetbajaj]

to confirm: is OA B?

Ron,

I know "disturbing to his own time" sounds like it is referring to a non-person. However, couldn't you assume that "his own time" refers to a generation, which is essentially a group of people?

[RonPurewal]

to confirm: is OA B?

Ron,

I know "disturbing to his own time" sounds like it is referring to a non-person. However, couldn't you assume that "his own time" refers to a generation, which is essentially a group of people?

yeah, i've thought this through before, too, and come up with something roughly like that.

still, though, the bar for extremely literal language is usually really high on this exam. therefore, i was a bit surprised at their acceptance of this usage, which would no doubt be considered wrong by most other authorities.

in fact, if you google the search string "disturbing to his own time" (with the quotes), ALL of the results you get are ... this exact question. every single one of them... which means that this string of words is not used anywhere else on the entire internet.

oh well... i guess we should just memorize this as an example of a "strange idiomatic expression" that, for some reason, is not disturbing to the test writers.

[rahul_lodha]

I understand that "disturbing to his own time" is a fishy usage of idiom, but still I think the answer should be "B" because of other basic grammatical errors in other options:-
(A) was as disturbing to his own time as it is
Subject of the sentence is plural
(B) were as disturbing to his own time as they are
CORRECT
(C) has been as disturbing in his own time as they are
Subject of the sentence is plural
(D) had been as disturbing in his own time as it was
Subject of the sentence is plural
(E) have been as disturbing in his own time as (missing link, something like "they are" should be present)

[mschwrtz]

good job

[riyad.mobeen]

I could be wrong...

If we removed the fluff in the middle of the dashes and left the sentence as :

"Thomas Eakin's powerful style [b]and[b] his choices of subject..."

We would need to have a plural verb --> "were" to complete the sentence because the first part of the sentence combines "powerful style (singular) AND choices (plural) --therefore "were" is correct.

My example that helped me was:

John WAS at the party.
John AND his friends WERE at the party.

Does this make sense?

[RonPurewal]

I could be wrong...

If we removed the fluff in the middle of the dashes and left the sentence as :

"Thomas Eakin's powerful style [b]and[b] his choices of subject..."

We would need to have a plural verb --> "were" to complete the sentence because the first part of the sentence combines "powerful style (singular) AND choices (plural) --therefore "were" is correct.

My example that helped me was:

John WAS at the party.
John AND his friends WERE at the party.

Does this make sense?

this is correct ... but i don't understand why you are posting it. (you are writing as though you are answering someone, but no one else on this thread has said anything about the singular/plural issue.)
are you looking for an answer or explanation of some kind? please clarify, thanks.

[jp.jprasanna]

Dear Ron / Tim - Can i eliminate option B and C because of parallelism issues.

(C) has been as disturbing in his own time as they are
(D) had been as disturbing in his own time as it was

If you have than/as + subject + FORM OF "TO BE" as the second half of a comparison, then you must have another form of "to be" in the first half of the comparison.

So "are/was" cannot be parallel with "has/had been" ?

Because we can write with the 2nd half with "has" instead as below.

(C) has been as disturbing in his own time as they have been

Please help.

Cheers

[jp.jprasanna]

"have been" implies that those disturbances (or their effects) still continue to this day. that's not true - the sentence implies that the disturbance existed only in that time period - so the present perfect doesn't make sense.

Also Ron - is this the only error in E or one of the posters above has mentioned that we need a subject after as - is this true? if so could you please let me know why?

If option E were to written as below, would this be correct?

(E) were as disturbing in his own time as compelling for ours.

I thought disturbing & compelling are perfectly parallel.


Cheers

[RonPurewal]

"have been" implies that those disturbances (or their effects) still continue to this day. that's not true - the sentence implies that the disturbance existed only in that time period - so the present perfect doesn't make sense.

Also Ron - is this the only error in E or one of the posters above has mentioned that we need a subject after as - is this true? if so could you please let me know why?

If option E were to written as below, would this be correct?

(E) were as disturbing in his own time as compelling for ours.

I thought disturbing & compelling are perfectly parallel.


Cheers

you should have a second verb in (e) because the tense changes. in general, if you don't have a second verb, then the implication is that the tense doesn't change.

e.g.
i can run faster than my father.
--> this implies that i can run faster than my father can run right now.
i can run faster than my father [i]could (when he was young).[/i]
--> this is how we compare two things that happened in different timeframes.

in your example with disturbing and compelling, the same issue remains.

[gmatalongthewatchtower]

Ron,
Sorry to open the old thread. Can you please explain how B) is parallel?

as disturbing to his own time as they are compelling for ours

Thoughts?