Sentence Correction

Scholars who once thought Native American literatures were solely oral narratives recorded by missionaries or anthropologists now understand this body of work to consist of both oral literatures and the written works of Native American authors, who have been publishing since 1772.

A. Scholars who once thought Native American literatures were solely oral narratives
B. Scholars thinking of Native American literatures once solely as oral narratives,and
C. Scholars who once had thought of Native American literatures solely as oral narratives and
D. Native American literatures, which some scholars once thought were solely oral narratives
E. Native American literatures, which some scholars once, thinking they were solely oral narratives

OA: A

reasoning:

we are talking about past first and then present

b)thinking...continuous tense is wrong, we need past tense for the fist part "once thought"

c) we don't need HAD here because order of events is clear with simple past (thought) and then present tense (understand)

d) subject of the sentence is scholars NOT the Native American literatures


Scholars who once thought.......................... now understand this

scholars can understand not the literatures.

e) this is completely non-sense

scholars once, thinking


usage of ,thinking is wrong as here there isn't any cause-effect relation or the -ing form id not needed to modify the preceding clause.


Hence, correct answer: A