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by hemant_rajput » Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:25 am
139. In no other historical sighting did Halley's Comet cause such a worldwide sensation as did its return in 1910-1911.
(A) did its return in 1910-1911
(B) had its 1910-1911 return
(C) in its return of 1910-1911
(D) its return of 1910-1911 did
(E) its return in 1910-1911
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by Gowri@CrackVerbal » Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:28 pm
hemant_rajput wrote:139. In no other historical sighting did Halley's Comet cause such a worldwide sensation as did its return in 1910-1911.
(A) did its return in 1910-1911
(B) had its 1910-1911 return
(C) in its return of 1910-1911
(D) its return of 1910-1911 did
(E) its return in 1910-1911
Let's go to the crux of this statement: Halley's Comet caused a sensation in situation X (historical sighting of 1910-11). It did not create such a sensation in any other situation. In the interest of parallelism, the best way to write this sentence is:
In no other historical sighting did Halley's Comet cause such a worldwide sensation as in its return of 1910-11.
None of the other answer options maintain this parallelism. Hope this is clear.
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by GMATGuruNY » Wed Apr 17, 2013 4:00 am
hemant_rajput wrote:139. In no other historical sighting did Halley's Comet cause such a worldwide sensation as did its return in 1910-1911.
(A) did its return in 1910-1911
(B) had its 1910-1911 return
(C) in its return of 1910-1911
(D) its return of 1910-1911 did
(E) its return in 1910-1911
A, B, D and E seem to compare what Halley's Comet did to what its return did or what its return had.
Not the intended meaning: it is illogical to compare a COMET to ITS RETURN.
The intention here is to compare what Halley's Comet did IN one particular historical sighting -- IN its return of 1910-1911 -- to what Halley's comet did IN other historical sightings.
Only C makes the comparison crystal clear:
IN NO OTHER HISTORICAL SIGHTING did Halley's Comet cause such a worldwide sensation as [did Halley's Comet cause such a worldwide sensation] IN ITS RETURN OF 1910-1911.
The words in brackets are omitted, but their presence is understood.

The correct answer is C.

The omission of words whose presence is understood is called ELLIPSIS.
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