presumably John attended those 400 meetings and reviewed 700 apps while he held the office of a board member and the chair.

A, B, C all use "former chair"=> it would be difficult to attend that many meetings and review 700 apps while not holding the position of the chair.

D uses "she" with John

E. correct IMO, may be wrong though. John could have attended that many meetings and reviewed that many apps in the capacity of an active chair and board member only.

E?

A) As the former - Correctly used subordinate clause to qualify John, but fail on logical front. Nobody can attend meetings and do reviews as a FORMER chair.

B) The former - "The former chair" is subject and must followed by some verb to complete the sentence. It’s a case of sentence fragments.

C) Former – Has two problems. 1. Former should be preceded by some article. 2. After adding an article, this sentence will become similar to B.

D) She was – This is a case of comma splice.

E) As the – correct sentence. “As the” makes sentence before comma a subordinate clause, which qualifies John.

scoobydooby wrote: D uses "she" with John

Why John can't be a female? After all it's just a name.

right karmayogi just knew D was wrong, the "she-john" jumped out!..the comma-splice thing didnt strike me

As much as John can be a female, so can a former chair and an active board member could have the previlege to attend 400 meetings and review 700 apps.

Logical fallacy does not seem to be the right reason to rule A a wrong choice.

I guess the right reason to discard A is:
It is inappropriate to say
John is/was a former chairman for 18 years. It is implied that John is a former chairman forever after the moment he stepped out of his chairmanship.
OA is E