OG 13 Q38

Hello Everyone!

Let's take a closer look at this question to figure out how we should tackle it. First, here is the original question, with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions

(A) for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been
(B) for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also
(C) for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also
(D) of Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as also a politician, but Tagore was
(E) of Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore had also been

After a quick glance over the options, a few key differences jump out at us:

1. How they begin: admiration for vs. admiration of (idiomatic rules)
2. How to handle describing Gahdhi as a person and politician (possibly parallelism?)
3. How they end: had been vs. was (verb tense)

The quickest way to rule out wrong options is to find something on the list that will eliminate 2-3 options. For us, this means dealing with #1 on our list: admiration for vs. admiration of.

The rule in English is that people have admiration for other people - they do NOT have admiration of other people. So let's see which options do this correctly:

(A) for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been
(B) for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also
(C) for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also
(D) of Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as also a politician, but Tagore was
(E) of Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore had also been

There you go - we can eliminate options D & E because they don't follow the proper idiomatic rule for "admiration for."

Now that we have 3 options left, let's move on to #2 on our list: how to describe Gandhi. When listing 2 or more items, such as the qualities of a person, we MUST use parallel format whenever possible. Let's take a closer look at options A, B, and C to determine if they use parallel wording or structure:

(A) for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been --> NOT PARALLEL
(B) for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also --> PARALLEL
(C) for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also --> PARALLEL

So, we can eliminate option A because it does not use parallel structure when describing both traits of Gandhi.

Now we're only left with 2 options. Let's take a closer look at both, and see if we can spot any other problems:

(B) for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also

This option is CORRECT! It uses the proper idiom for "admiration for" a person, it uses parallel structure, and it doesn't have any other issues we can spot.

(C) for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also

This answer is INCORRECT because it doesn't use the proper format of the idiomatic structure "not only X, but also Y." Any time you see the phrase "not only" in a sentence, there MUST be a phrase that starts with "but also" with nothing in between the words! It's a tricky one to catch, yet it's a common idiom that pops up on the GMAT exam!

There you have it! Option B is our correct choice! By choosing to focus on simple differences between the options, we found the best option quickly!


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