Sentence Correction

Opened in 1683, the Ashmolean was the first public museum in Great Britain, while earlier the Bodleian has been the first truly public library.

(A) while earlier the Bodleian has been
(B) where the Bodleian earlier is
(C) just as earlier the Bodleian had been
(D) as the earlier Bodleian has been
(E) the Bodleian earlier being

Official Answer: C

Can someone explain why D (i.e. use of "has been") is wrong

in d) first of all usage of as only is incorrect (only 'as' is incorrect idiom)
also it should be earlier the Bodleian and not the earlier Bodleian.
also the sentence is in past tense, notice was the first public museum, thus had been is used.
(although I am not completely sure of this part)

IMO C

The main catch is that the non underlined portion is talking about a past event followed by the description of an event (having word "earlier") that took place even before the past event. "earlier" indicates that we need a "past participle" to describe the second event.

(A) while earlier the Bodleian has been
(B) where the Bodleian earlier is
(C) just as earlier the Bodleian had been
(D) as the earlier Bodleian has been
(E) the Bodleian earlier being (being is wordy)

vikrantr93 wrote:Opened in 1683, the Ashmolean was the first public museum in Great Britain, while earlier the Bodleian has been the first truly public library.

(A) while earlier the Bodleian has been
(B) where the Bodleian earlier is
(C) just as earlier the Bodleian had been
(D) as the earlier Bodleian has been
(E) the Bodleian earlier being

Official Answer: C

Can someone explain why D (i.e. use of "has been") is wrong

Hi,
'D' has multiple issues.
1)'as' should not be used. 'Just as' should be used for comparison.
2)'the earlier Bodleian' is incorrect. It should be 'earlier the Bodleian'. because 'the earlier Bodleian' means there are more than one Bodleians and we refer to the earlier one of those. But, here the intended meaning is different. We are looking for something that is earlier than another event.
3)Tense - It should be past perfect because we are talking about an event which is earlier than another past event(Opened in 1683).

Hi, thanks for the response. could you pl help me out to understand usage of as vs just as

Frankenstein wrote: 1)'as' should not be used. 'Just as' should be used for comparison.

I believe "As" is used to compare actions or clauses &
"Just as" is used as an idiom
however I'm not getting why "just as" is preferred to "as" in this sentence.

vikrantr93 wrote:Hi, thanks for the response. could you pl help me out to understand usage of as vs just as

Frankenstein wrote: 1)'as' should not be used. 'Just as' should be used for comparison.

I believe "As" is used to compare actions or clauses &
"Just as" is used as an idiom
however I'm not getting why "just as" is preferred to "as" in this sentence.

'as' is used for comparisons but only like
as many as, as good as, as much as, as X as to Y,
only 'as' is never used.

vikrantr93 wrote:Hi, thanks for the response. could you pl help me out to understand usage of as vs just as

Frankenstein wrote: 1)'as' should not be used. 'Just as' should be used for comparison.

I believe "As" is used to compare actions or clauses &
"Just as" is used as an idiom
however I'm not getting why "just as" is preferred to "as" in this sentence.

Hi,
Probably 'just as' or 'as' can be used. I am not 100% sure about that. On the first look 'just as' sounded better than 'as'. I think 'just' is simply an adverb to modify 'as', to emphasize it as 'precisely'. If that was the only difference between the two sentences, I don't think we will have both as options. I think we can eliminate D for other reasons and if experts can confirm on this, I will edit this part in my prev. post.

D is wrong because of the tense "has been"........option D talks about earlier,therefore,the tense "had been" should have been more appropriate...........if option D would have been written in a manner "as earlier x had been" then definitely D would have been better than option C..........

vikrantr93 wrote:Opened in 1683, the Ashmolean was the first public museum in Great Britain, while earlier the Bodleian has been the first truly public library.

(A) while earlier the Bodleian has been
(B) where the Bodleian earlier is
(C) just as earlier the Bodleian had been
(D) as the earlier Bodleian has been
(E) the Bodleian earlier being

Official Answer: C

Can someone explain why D (i.e. use of "has been") is wrong

The usage of "as" is not wrong in the sentence.Both "as" and "just as" can be used to compare actions.Nothing wrong with that.The main problem with the sentence is tense issue.

The sentence goes like this:

Ashmolean was the first public museum and before this event there was some other event Bodleian was the first truly public library.

So clearly there are two events and one event occurs before the other.

The second event(Ashmolean was the first public museum) is in simple past tense.
So the first event which is past of the second event can not be in present tense.

The verbs has been and is talk about present tense.


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