Doctors sometimes insist that their patients’ illnesses ar

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Doctors sometimes insist that their patients' illnesses are the result of depression, but in ascribing these ailments to a psychological disorder, the patients are in effect told that these illnesses are all in their head.

A. in ascribing these ailments to a psychological disorder
B. if these ailments are ascribed as the cause for a psychological disorder
C. in ascribing a psychological disorder as the cause for these ailments
D. if these ailments are ascribed to a psychological disorder
E. in ascribing a psychological disorder to these ailments

OA: D

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by Vincen » Sat Oct 21, 2017 5:44 pm
What about option B? Is almost the same as D. How can I discard option B? Experts, can you give me some help?

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by ErikaPrepScholar » Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:05 am
Hey folks,

Couple of things to note here.

First off, the sentence already tells us that doctors insist that illnesses are the result of depression. So it doesn't make sense for B to tell us in the underlined portion that these ailments (another word for "illnesses") are the cause for a psychological disorder (like depression). That's the complete opposite meaning. We want depression leads to illness, not illness leads to depression. So B changes the meaning of the sentence.

Second, and more challengingly, "ascribe" always goes with the preposition "to", not "as". Something is "ascribed to" something else, not "ascribed as" something else.

Finally, to "ascribe" is to attribute something to something else - to claim one thing is caused by another. So it's really redundant to say "ascribe something as a cause".

When the placement of words switches around between answer choices, look out for changes in meaning - remember, we always want to match the meaning of the original sentence on the GMAT!
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