Sentence Correction

At the time of the Mexican agrarian revolution, the most radical faction, that of Zapata and his followers, proposed a return to communal ownership of land, to what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership respected by the Spaniards.

(A) land, to what had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership respected by the Spaniards
(B) land, a form of ownership of the pre-Columbians and respected by the Spaniards
(C) land, respected by the Spaniards and a pre-Columbian form of ownership
(D) land in which a pre-Columbian form of ownership was respected by the Spaniards
(E) land that had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership respected by the Spaniards

How to resolve this sentence. I could not even spot the type of error!

Is the OA E?

I am looking at it this way..

...the most radical faction proposed a return to x that had been a y respected by the Spaniards ..

where x is "communal ownership of land" and y is "pre-Columbian form of ownership"

hmm... May be not, I can't compare "communal ownership of land" with "form of ownership" now can I?

Calista.

The OA is A ... but I cant figure out the rationale behind it. This sentence is from 1000SC, where not all answers are correct.

I chose B: the part of sentence after the comma (,) describes the communal ownership.

The problem I had with E was it says 'land that had been a pre-Columbian form of ownership', in other words it says that the land was the form of ownership.

My understanding is 'that' after a noun refers to the noun (land in this case).

I applaud your sticking with the 1000SC. I tried it, but without any explanations I wasn't learning anything from my mistakes. So just stopped doing it.

Sankruth, IMO B too. Calista, I am not getting any meaning of chosing E. The reason is what Sankruth has mentioned. I would like to invite Stuart to give some focus on this SC...

The original is the correct choice.

This sentence uses a fairly rare form of parellelism (I'm really not sure how closely 1000 SC models real GMAT SC questions).

The last phrase is parallel to the second last phrase and is more a spoken form of English than a written one.

A similar sentence would be:

"I wish I could return to Ireland, to the land of my ancestors."

(E) is just too wordy.

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:The last phrase is parallel to the second last phrase and is more a spoken form of English than a written one.

OK! Stuart, that is having the correct parallelism between the clauses but I am concerned about the fact that - Does it not distort the meaning?

Stuart I am not getting the meaning and that's why I am asking you!