(A) Having lost his sight to sustained eyestrain [ . Having lost his sight can simply be worded as Blinded.also the to sustained eyestrain implies as if that is an entity and John lost his sight to it. It should be replaced by using the word- 'BY'. This will sufficiently denote that 'sustained eyestrain' caused John to lose his sight. Eliminated]

(B) With his sight lost to sustained eyestrain [ if you read the complete sentence it would read- John Milton with his sight lost...it sounds as if these 2 are two different entities and bothwere lost to sustained eyestrain. do you see how ridiculous it sounds? Eliminated!]

(C) Blinded by sustained eyestrain [ my answer. answer choice is crisp and meaning intent clear.]

(D) Having been blinded by excessive eyestrain [ the word 'excessive' is not appropriate in this context. there is no threshold for eyestrain. eyestrain itself means a strain on eyes. you cannot have an extra of an extra effect. Eliminated!]

(E) Blinded with sustained eyestrain [same error as described in B]

Hope this helps!

i was debating between B and C... well not debating but those are the two that I narrowed it down too... and then chose C

Having lost his sight to sustained eyestrain[/u]. John Milton nevertheless composed Paradise Lost, considered by many to be the greatest English epic.

(A) Having lost his sight to sustained eyestrain....to is wrng here......also wordy
(B) With his sight lost to sustained eyestrain.......to and with are wrng
(C) Blinded by sustained eyestrain.....ok
(D) Having been blinded by excessive eyestrain.........meaning altered
(E) Blinded with sustained eyestrain.......blindness and sustained eyestrain are effect and cause with is a wrng word to connect

IMO having signifies because which is not the intent of the sentence.

The meaning of the sentence is,
John Milton lost his eye sight because of some reason and even then he wrote Paradise Lost.

Now if we combine these two sentences with the conjunction because

because John Milton lost his sight to the sustained eye strain, he nevertheless wrote paradise lost.

This is not the intended meaning of the sentence, So A and D could be eliminated straight away. Now down to the other three, with is not the correct usage as cited above. these are the cause and effect. So IMO C is correct

fibbonnaci wrote:


(C) Blinded by sustained eyestrain [ my answer. answer choice is crisp and meaning intent clear.]

Blinded by is more idiomatic than blinded with.