I was down to A and D

D -compares works with study

I think A is the answer

Because 'that' refers to 'study'

Help me understand the comparison.

Whats wrong with comparing earlier works with new innovative studies?

Are you suggesting the sentence means:

Unlike studies of earlier works on slavery, Blassingame’s innovative study relies .....

netigen,

Yes you are right the option A mean

Unlike study of earlier works on slavery, Blassingame’s innovative study relies .....

If you look at that and then start reading the sentence the first noun you encounter is study, therefore 'that' refers to 'study'

The definition of pronoun says - pronoun refers to nearest reasonable noun. In this case nearest reasonable noun is study

@s_raizada, i would like to differ.
according to ur logic, if i separate a fragment of the main sentence, it would look like this:
"study of earlier works on slavery relies on the records of White slave owners".
i think the intended meaning of the sentence is "earlier works on slavery relies on the records of White slave owners" & not the study of .......
here study and work represent same meaning.

hence imo D.

Thanks!

loki.gmat,

I agree logically D makes more sence


netigen,
What is OA?

OA is A but I also went with D

I think OA is suspect.

"earlier works on slavery" can not be logically compared with "Blassingame’s innovative study", for plural must be compared with plural.

So C, D & E out.

B is does not maintain parallelism. It compares "that of earlier works on slavery" - study - with "Blassingame".

@pranava_t.

"bella & june, like their mother stacey, are extremely smart."

the sentence above is correct & it compares bella & june (plural) with their mother (singular).

I find D to be correct ... please justify why A

Guys I think A is more appropriate due to comparison here.

Unlike (the study put in for )/(that of) earlier works , Blassingame’s study ....relies more on records than .......

We need to compare the study/research and not the final product ....

This would ahve been correct if ...

Unlike earlier works, Blassingame's work relies on ......


Please let me know if it make sense...

Yup i agree.In A that refers ot the study of earlier works...Unlike that(study) of earlier works on slavery, Blassingame’s innovative study......
So makes the correct cmprsn !

I'm 100% certain that (d) is the right answer.

"that" when used with "of" creates a possessive pronoun that needs to refer to some characterstic of the earlier studies, rather than the studies themselves. Additionally, it would be very rare to use "that of" when referring to a plural noun - we would usually use "those of". "that of" would only be correct if we were referring to some communal characterstic that the studies had as a group.

An example of proper usage of "that of" would be:

"Unlike that of earlier studies, the genre of Blassingame's study is..."

More likely, we'd see something like:

"Unlike those of earlier studies, the table of contents of Blassingame's study...".

In the posted sentence, we're comparing the studies themselves to Blassingame's study, so "that of" is 100% incorrect.

As an aside, we can definitely compare a group to a specific person.

The following are proper comparisons:

"Unlike most other hockey players, Wayne Gretzky was more excited about getting an assist than a goal."

"Like her co-workers, Melissa enjoyed a good drink at happy hour."

Modifier, incorrect comparison.

A. incorrectly compares 'earlier works on slavery to 'Blassingame'.

B. it's not clear what 'that' refers to making the comparison vague and unclear.

C. earlier works on slavery is compared to Blassingame who is not a work but a person.

D. earlier works on slavery compared to Blassingame's innovative study. CORRECT

E. earlier works on slavery is compared to Blassingame who is not a work but a person.