Bob Wilber became

[maihuna]

Bob Wilber became Sidney Bechet’s student and protégé when he was nineteen and, for a few years in the 1940’s, came as close to being a carbon copy of the jazz virtuoso in performance as anyone has ever come.
(A) as anyone has ever come
(B) as anyone ever had been
(C) as anyone ever had done
(D) that anyone ever did
(E) that anyone ever came

[hk]

I go with B here. Would like to know the source and the OA please.

[vinayakdl]

I will go with B.

as close...as(parallelism) and Past Perfect tense is needed here hence B.

Vinayak

[DeepakR]

I would go with A. The reason I would give is as follows:
Came as close as - so we have narrowed down the choices to A, B or C.

In (B) as anyone ever had been -- this would be better if we had
came as close as anyone had ever been.

In (C) as anyone ever had done -- this would be better if we had
came as close as anyone had ever done.

So I would choose A. I may be wrong. Please correct me in that case.

-Deepak

[MBA2010HereWeGo]

Bob Wilber became Sidney Bechet’s student and protégé when he was nineteen and, for a few years in the 1940’s, came as close to being a carbon copy of the jazz virtuoso in performance as anyone has ever come.
(A) as anyone has ever come
(B) as anyone ever had been
(C) as anyone ever had done
(D) that anyone ever did
(E) that anyone ever came

IMO B

since the parallelism tests the concept of as close to being X as Y, we must eliminate D & E.

Since we are speaking about the past, we must eliminate choice A which leaves choice B & C.

Thus essentially we must choose between "ever had been" vs "ever had done". Since the sentence aims to establish parallel structure between "came as close to being X" and "as Y", the most logical set up would be between "as close to being a carbon copy of Bechet in performance" and "as anyone had ever been".

[ketkoag]

B for me too.

[bigmonkey31]

BUMP.

The OA is A. This is from 1000SC #180.

Anyone have a good explanation after knowing the OA? Thanks.

[Pdgmat2010]

IMO A, the original sentence sounds okay
came as close to 'being X' as anyone has ever come.

i used this format to fit in the correct answer.
pls could someone analyze this further?

[girish3131]

A is IMPOSSIBLE....!!!!

because how u can say has ever come which convey that that Sidney Bechet is still here.....

[harshavardhanc]

Bob Wilber became Sidney Bechet�s student and prot�g� when he was nineteen and, for a few years in the 1940�s, came as close to being a carbon copy of the jazz virtuoso in performance as anyone has ever come.
(A) as anyone has ever come
(B) as anyone ever had been
(C) as anyone ever had done
(D) that anyone ever did
(E) that anyone ever came

IMO A.

A,B & C are the contenders.

A maintains ||ism

came as close to being ...as anyone has ever come.