Sentence Correction

Great question, as vikas said this is a case of the original sentence being satisfactory and no change really necessary.

A is also more concise than C, and I think the participial phrase is expected after the surprise indicated by "himself an illiterate".

initial i thought A is correct but after seeing the options i have choosen D but that is wrong as per sumanr84.

can any expert tell how A is correct

I was discussing this one with a friend, and actually realized something in the process. Look at this scenario:

John performs a study of Jane's daily activities. He finds that she prefers to sleep at 9pm. He presents his results in an article.

Sentence 1: John's article shows that Jane is a woman who prefers to sleep at 9pm.
Sentence 2: John's article shows that Jane is a woman and that she prefers to sleep at 9pm.

Do you notice the altered intent in no. 2? The article doesn't really SHOW that Jane is a woman - it just refers back to Jane as a woman (established fact) who prefers to sleep at 9pm (the finding).

If you give this some thought you will see why A is preferable - it need not be that the study separately showed Charlemagne as an illiterate, but that it is simply using illiterate to refer back to him with an established fact about him and then using that to state it's findings.

This is simply a great question....
Btw..I too got this question and this was the first question I solved in the exam..
Seems to be a tough one...

Thanks albatross86 for the explanation....

albatross86 wrote:I was discussing this one with a friend, and actually realized something in the process. Look at this scenario:

John performs a study of Jane's daily activities. He finds that she prefers to sleep at 9pm. He presents his results in an article.

Sentence 1: John's article shows that Jane is a woman who prefers to sleep at 9pm.
Sentence 2: John's article shows that Jane is a woman and that she prefers to sleep at 9pm.

Do you notice the altered intent in no. 2? The article doesn't really SHOW that Jane is a woman - it just refers back to Jane as a woman (established fact) who prefers to sleep at 9pm (the finding).

If you give this some thought you will see why A is preferable - it need not be that the study separately showed Charlemagne as an illiterate, but that it is simply using illiterate to refer back to him with an established fact about him and then using that to state it's findings.

This is an awesome example! Thanks for the explanation.

I would like to add one more point here.

Note that, in "X was himself an Y", "was" is acting as a linking verb. This implies X=Y - in other words, Y is an attribute of X. NOW, anything that "modifies" Y also implicitly modifies X. NOTE I said "modifies", which is different from saying "qualifies".

In "X was Z", "Z" is qualifying X - in other words, the sentence is attributing the quality Z (in our case, of being driver) directly to X. Hence, if you say "X is Y, and X was Z", you are attributing both Y and Z to X, while giving EQUAL IMPORTANCE TO BOTH THE ATTRIBUTES.

However, when you say "X was Y who was Z", the PRIMARY FOCUS of the author is "X was Y". Although, Z is also attributing to X, BUT indirectly and NOT the author's PRIMARY FOCUS. NOTE: In our case "who was" is NOT necessary, which is primarily case when Z is of a particle form.

Hence, C changes the intended meaning. Please let me know if somebody disagrees.