Sentence Correction

Never before had the musicians faced so many challenges at once as they had in playing Schubert's Trout Variations.

A. so many challenges at once as they had in
B. at once as many challenges as
C. at once as many challenges that they were when
D. as many challenges at once as they confronted in
E. so many challenges at once that confronted them in

What is Wrong with A. OA is D

I feel somewhere we have to speak about confrontation, since we are speaking about challenges.So narrow down to D and E. E is too wordy and ambiguos, hence i chose option D.

Also look for splits 3/2 splits. One can at least eliminate 2 option or 3 options.

bharath2787 wrote:
What is Wrong with A. OA is D

The correct idioms are "so..that" and "so..as to"

Thanks guys!..

but Doesn't " Never so much as" work in the same way as "Not so much as" ??.

indeed Never so much as is also used in English. what is wrong with A?

Issues with A -
1) The idiom is So X that Y. "That" is missing
2) Had is already present in the non-underlined part, this means we need a action in PAST TENSE which happened after the event denoted using HAD.
Meaning of sentence: while playing playing Schubert's Trout Variations, musicians FACED so many challenges that they HAD never FACED in the past.

So basically a second HAD coming in the underlined part is wrong. It should be a past tense which is correctly denoted by CONFRONTED in option D.

I hope this helps !!

bharath2787 wrote:Never before had the musicians faced so many challenges at once as they had in playing Schubert's Trout Variations.

A. so many challenges at once as they had in
D. as many challenges at once as they confronted in


What is Wrong with A. OA is D