There's a third problem with C that I forgot to include:
3) comparison error --> this is the biggest error and easiest to fix:
"The decisions of John Marshall, the fourth chief justice, have had a greater influence than any chief justice in history."
--> To make this sentence easier to understand, let's remove the middle clause, "the fourth chief justice" since it is not necessary in the sentence:
"The decisions of John Marshall have had a greater influence than any chief justice in history."
If you look at this sentence there is a comparison being made because of the phrase 'have had a greater influence." However, the comparison is incorrectly being made between "the decisions" and "any chief justice." To fix this, you must use a noun/pronoun that can be used with "the decisions." One way is to change the sentence to:
"The decisions of John Marshall have had a greater influence than the decisions of any chief justice in history."
This method requires repeating the fragment "the decisions." Another way is to use a pronoun to remove the need to repeat:
"The decisions of John Marshall have had a greater influence than those of any chief justice in history."
In this change, the referent of "those" is understood/implied to be "the decisions." This change is better because it does not require redundant use of the same words. This leaves answer choices C and E.
C is wrong because the repetition of "have" is not necessary and idiomatically incorrect. The correct idiom for this comparison is "X has greater ___ than Y" not "X has greater ___ than has Y." In addition, C is also wrong because it is missing the word "other" in the fragment, "any chief justice." Why? Because without it, John Marshall himself could be included in that group because he was a chief justice after all. This would make the comparison also compare John Marshall with John Marshall and that makes no sense.
C is wrong. E is correct - it avoids all three issues I have mentioned.
