i shall go with B

Whats the OA ?

duongthang wrote:until the seventeenth century, no tradition of child portrature existed; childhood was considered an unimportant phase /of which there was no need to keep any record/

a,

b, with no need to keep records

c, without need for keeping any record

d, and there was no need to keep records of it

e, whose records there was no need of

which is correct ?

IMO D

A is wrong because in A which modifies phase and distorts the meaning indicating that there is no need to keep records of phase.

B with no need to keep records

'with no need' acting as prepositional phrase modifies a noun that precedes it, so it is also modifying phase rather than childhood

c, without need for keeping any record

Wrong same reason as B

D and there was no need to keep records of it

correct

e, whose records there was no need of

Whose in this case modifies phase not childhood

why "which" can not refer to "phrase"

IMO D.

It's A. "an unimportant phase of which there was no need to keep any record" is correct -- in other words, it's saying "there was no need to keep any record of the unimportant phase (childhood)". You can change "no need to keep any record of the phase" to "phase of which there was no need to keep any record".

B is saying that the phase (childhood) had no need to keep any records -- as if a phase were a living thing that can have any needs of any kind.

D changes the meaning. The point of the sentence is that people then *believed* that childhood was an unimportant phase of which there was no need to keep any record; D says that people believed it was an unimportant phase, and that in addition, it was objectively true (not just something people believed) that there was no need to keep any record of it.

Hope this helps.

B sounds weird and distorts the meaning.


A makes sense, and there is certainly no grammatical mistake.