Great question, kvitkod - this is actually pretty similar to something I've heard from a lot of high scorers on recent GMATs: they found the parallel structure items on SC to be the most difficult questions they faced.
I think a big reason for that is that people focus a little bit too much on pure grammar in these cases and not enough on logic.
Here, we do need parallel structure - but if you break it apart from verb tenses what we really need to say is that:
That X is the case is more of a landmark than that Y is the case.
That's really the basis for parallelism...we just need to make sure we're comparing like things. "Her womanhood", in C, isn't a fact, so it's nowhere near parallel - we're looking at which of two facts is the more noteworthy.
That should get you down to D and E, but from there D should seem nonsensical. It's not that she "was" a woman...that past-tense isn't called for, particularly when the previous word referred to her as "she". "She" and "woman" are essence things...they're not temporary states. So, logically, she just "is" a woman, as E states.
The GMAT likes this kind of setup because b-schools aren't looking for robotic thinkers...they want logical thinkers who can prioritize and decide on important decision points. Parallelism isn't purely absolute in that you need the exact same type of word in each case - it's more logical...does this comparison make sense?
Be careful with verb tense - it's quite common to make comparisons across time. For example: "In order to break the world record, he will need to run faster than Usain Bolt ran at the 2008 Olympics." We're comparing how fast each would have to run - it's a fully logical comparison...it's just that one person has already run that fast and the next person will need to do so.
My advice: Take a step back from pure grammar on these questions and look at the logic, too.
Brian Galvin
GMAT Instructor
Chief Academic Officer
Veritas Prep
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