We need to observe two things parallelism and tense.
Parallelism: The work ... reflects X of Y as much as it does (reflects) A of B.
Tense: 'reflects' is present tense so second part also has to be in present tense i.e. does.

IMO E

@Feruza
The question is from Kaplan full-length practice test, correct? I just completed the test. I answered the posted question correctly but got stumped in few other questions. Going to post them shortly.

OA is E

Yeah, the question is from Kaplan CAT6.

Thanks for explanation

karma,

i chose A between A and E. why is A wrong? why is does imp here, coz i thought A still maintained the needful parallelism without it.

niraj_a wrote:karma,

i chose A between A and E. why is A wrong? why is does imp here, coz i thought A still maintained the needful parallelism without it.

Check my comment on parallelism:
Parallelism: The work ... reflects X of Y as much as it does (reflects) A of B.

Got it? No, let's write the statement after replacing 'does' with 'reflects'.

The work...reflects characteristic interests of his contemporary "local colorists"
as much as
it reflects the intellectual ferment and historical reassessments of late..culture

E--The work reflects "X " as much as it ( The work) does "Y" and "Z"

A--The work refects "X" as much as "Y" and "Z"

iamcste wrote:E--The work reflects "X " as much as it ( The work) does "Y" and "Z"

A--The work refects "X" as much as "Y" and "Z"

@iamcste
Could You check my previous comment? Does that make sense? because the way I have established the parallelism is different from the way you have done.

karmayogi wrote:

iamcste wrote:E--The work reflects "X " as much as it ( The work) does "Y" and "Z"

A--The work refects "X" as much as "Y" and "Z"

@iamcste
Could You check my previous comment? Does that make sense? because the way I have established the parallelism is different from the way you have done.

Its the same if you look at without prepositonal phrases...

@iamcste

not fully convinced. but definitely it's not a major issue to debate on .
Thanks...

karmayogi wrote:@iamcste

not fully convinced. but definitely it's not a major issue to debate on .
Thanks...

PM me if you require

Actually, this issue comes up a fair bit in SCs, but I usually explain it a different way (what was said above wasn't wrong, but let me try tackling it from a different angle).

In everyday conversational English, people say things like

I love the cat more than the dog.

Common sense would tell you that the speaker means, "I love the cat and I love the dog, but I love the cat more" (common sense especially if you're a cat lover ). But grammatically, it'd be considered wrong on the GMAT. It's ambiguous. It *could* mean "I love the cat and the dog loves the cat, but I love the cat more than the dog does."

This kind of ambiguity in comparisons is considered wrong in formal written English, and it gets tested quite a bit on the GMAT. You fix it by adding an auxiliary verb and, if necessary, repeating the subject -- "I love the cat more than I do the dog" or "I love the cat more than the dog does."

In the example here, A *could* mean that the work of Charles Chesnutt reflects characteristic interests of his contemporary local colonists as much as "the intellectual ferment and historical reassessments, etc." reflect characteristic interests of his contemporary local colonists. E fixes that.

Thanks Karen, and all folks who gave their solutions to the above problem!

It was really helpful!

I appreciate your time.

thanks,
Feruza

sweet, got it now.