Barbara Wootton's elephant

[kobel51]

The British sociologist and activist Barbara Wootton once noted as a humorous example of income maldistribution that the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo was earning annually exactly what she then earned as director of adult education for London.

(A) that the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo was earning

(B) that the elephant, giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo, had been earning

(C) that there was an elephant giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo, and it earned

(D) the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo and was earning

(E) the elephant giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo and that it earned

[Patrick_GMATFix]

The best tense to use for "to earn" is the past progressive "was earning" as in "the elephant was earning what she then earned". Only A and D use this tense. D commits a parallelism error (the elephant giving rides and was earning).

The answer is A. I go through the question in detail in the full solution below (taken from the GMATFix App).



-Patrick