Johnson

B imo...A is too extreme...since the paragraph says Johnson's text is "more faithful", I assume it is less distorted..later in the paragraph it states that the dash that Johnson printed IMPLIES something that Dickinson never meant..in other words, to mislead.

(A) Although Johnson is right in criticizing Dickinson’s early editors for their distortion of her work, his own text is guilty of equally serious distortions. The seroiusness of distortions is no where discussed.
(B) Johnson’s use of the dash in his text of Dickinson’s poetry misleads readers about the poet’s intentions. True but it doesn't capture the main point. True .
(C) Because Dickinson never expected her poetry to be published, virtually any attempt at editing it must run counter to her intentions. Can't be main point.
(D) Although Johnson’s attempt to produce a more faithful text of Dickinson’s poetry is well-meaning, his study of the material lacks sufficient thoroughness. Thoroughness is not talked of in the given passage.
(E) Dickinson’s editors, including Johnson, have failed to deal adequately with the problem of deciphering Dickinson’s handwritten manuscripts. True

Now between B and E

Option B - This is the reason that is put forth to show that Johnson has distoted the poetry

Option E - This is the reason put forth to show that Johnson and other editors have failed to decipher few things in the poetry that led to distotion of the poetry. We only know that Johnson has distoted because of problem in deciphering a punctuation mark but we do not know the reason for other editors. For this reason 'E' should be incorrect.

Option B in all probability should be the right answer.

Expert comments most welcome...

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Musicolo wrote:This is the main issue with regard to GMAT which must be changed. Here we are discussing which is the correct answer and yet we can not agree on it. And we are supposed to find the correct answer in two minutes when taking the actual test.
Who comes up with these idiotic questions? Are we supposedly smarter or with higher level of logical thinking if we get this question right?
The only person who knows these answers is the person who came up with this questions. Now, Id like to see him/her and see what they are doing for living (other then this) and how much money are they making!!! Probably sitting somewhere in some dark room, being overweight, secluded from any form of social life, coming up with these idiotic questions....I wish GMAT did not exist.

First, note that this is NOT an official GMAT question - it looks like it comes from the CR 1000 set, which has provided many a questionable question in the past.

Questions on the actual GMAT are vetted very carefully. The main reason that it's so expensive to write the GMAT is because of the insanely high cost of creating and testing new questions. Every question you see on Test Day has been checked, double checked, triple checked and quadruple checked to eliminate ambiguity and maintain consistency with previous GMAT questions.

So, here's the takeaway from this particular question: don't worry about it. You have a number of experts disagreeing about the validity of a "made up" question from a questionable source. Another takeaway: beware of random questions you find on the Internet; know which sources you can trust and which you can't.

the reason i think E is wrong is because of "OFTEN" in the prompt does not mean "ALWAYS" and E sounds like "have failed to deal adequately" they have always failed.

makes sense?