Athenian!!

[gmat_perfect]

Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.

(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
=>what is the problem in this option?

(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed

(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing
=> Awkward.

My question:

What is the difference between C and D?

Thanks.

[gmat1011]

I think D --- that follows the reporting verb indicate

In C --- 'that' seems a bit ambiguous (but in spoken english I may well have used it...); but D seems better and a bit more concise....

[kvcpk]

I am not sure about the that vs which usage here.. but once again I see a parallelism issue here..

The un-underlined portion of the sentence has "and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle "
So there should be "that" before the "and" also.

Which is correctly present only in D - "indicate that each year young Athenian "

Hope this helps!!

[albatross86]

I think D --- that follows the reporting verb indicate

In C --- 'that' seems a bit ambiguous (but in spoken english I may well have used it...); but D seems better and a bit more concise....

Exactly, I agree.

In C, we have the form "... a new woolen robe that they used to dress.... and that this robe...."

This seems to suggest " a robe that this robe..."

In D we have "indicates that ... and that..." which makes much more sense, and is parallel.

[Patrick_GMATFix]

"Based" is an adjective and adjectives modify nouns. Any modifier introduced with an adjective must be a noun modifier. Problem in this case is that the modifier "Based on records" is not placed next to any valid target. A & B are incorrect.

E is incorrect because we need "that" (used here as a conjunction) after 'indicate' to introduce the subordinate clause that tells us what the records indicate.

D is better than C because as others have pointed out, we need a parallel structure to explain list the two things that records show: "that each year women collaborated...and that this robe depicted scenes"

The OA is D. A much more detailed explanation can be seen at GMATPrep question 2179

-Patrick