Sentence Correction

In the English-speaking world Anton Checkhov is by far better known for his plays than for his short stories, but it was during his lifetime that Chekhov's stories made him popular while his plays were given a more ambivalent reception, even by his fellow writers.

(A) by far better known for his plays than for his short stories, but it was during his lifetime that

(B) by far better known for his plays than he was for his short stories, but during his lifetime

(C) known far better for his plays than he was for his short stories, but during his lifetime it was

(D) far better known for his plays than were his short stories, but it was during his lifetime that

(E) far better known for his plays than for his short stories, but during his lifetime

The solution below is taken from the GMATFix App.



-Patrick

The first things to note is that "is" is not underlined, so we're talking about the present, then in the second-half "made" and "were given" indicates we've moved to the past. So the first error we can spot and use to eliminate are any Verb Tense jumps

(B)'s "was" doesn't agree with "is"
(C)'s "was" doesn't agree with "is"

With these out, let's see if there's anything easy to spot in (A), (D), or (E).

(D) incorrectly compares "plays" to "were his short stories" rather than just "plays" to "stories"

Error #1 - Verb Tense
Error #2 - Comparison

So now, how to pick between (A) and (E)? When no other grammar errors are obvious, it's time to analyze Style.

In (A), there is some redundancy with "his" and "Chekhov's stories" -- it's almost like saying, "...but it was during Chekhov's lifetime that Chekhov's stories made him popular..." We get it, we're talking about Chekhov -- we don't need the sentence to reference him so much. In addition, the phrase "it was" doesn't serve any necessary purpose. (E) removed the redundancy, the wordiness, and adds no additional grammar error.

Based on style, (E) is correct.

VivianKerr wrote:The first things to note is that "is" is not underlined, so we're talking about the present, then in the second-half "made" and "were given" indicates we've moved to the past. So the first error we can spot and use to eliminate are any Verb Tense jumps

(B)'s "was" doesn't agree with "is"
(C)'s "was" doesn't agree with "is"

With these out, let's see if there's anything easy to spot in (A), (D), or (E).

(D) incorrectly compares "plays" to "were his short stories" rather than just "plays" to "stories"

Error #1 - Verb Tense
Error #2 - Comparison

So now, how to pick between (A) and (E)? When no other grammar errors are obvious, it's time to analyze Style.

In (A), there is some redundancy with "his" and "Chekhov's stories" -- it's almost like saying, "...but it was during Chekhov's lifetime that Chekhov's stories made him popular..." We get it, we're talking about Chekhov -- we don't need the sentence to reference him so much. In addition, the phrase "it was" doesn't serve any necessary purpose. (E) removed the redundancy, the wordiness, and adds no additional grammar error.

Based on style, (E) is correct.

I don't agree with your analysis of A vs. E: the redundancy with "his" is present in both answers so it's not relevant. It just doesn't make sense to start the sentence with "but it was during" vs. "but during", because we are just trying to express the idea "when dead plays > stories, but when alive stories > plays" and not "when dead plays > stories, but the period when stories > plays was when alive"

Oops, you're correct, the redundancy IS present is (E) as well (well-spotted!), however based on the wordiness and lack of any additional grammar error, it's still got to be (E).

The big decision points on this question, IMO, are Verb Tense, Comparison, and Style.