Like ancient Egyptian architectural materials

[rsarashi]

Like ancient Egyptian architectural materials that were recycled in the construction of ancient Greek Alexandria, so ancient Greek materials from the construction of the that city were reused in subsequent centuries by Roman, Muslim, and modern builders.

A) Like ancient Egyptian architectural materials that were recycled in the construction of
B) Like recycling ancient Egyptian architectural materials to construct
C) Just as ancient Egyptian architectural materials were recycled in the construction of
D) Just as they recycled ancient Egyptian architectural materials in constructing
E) Just like ancient Egyptian architectural materials that were recycled in constructing

OAC

Please explain

[ceilidh.erickson]

This question is testing IDIOMS and COMPARISONS.

If a sentence begins Like X..., it should create a comparison to a NOUN - specifically, the subject of the independent clause: Like X, Y is a letter. We cannot say Like X, so Y is... For this reason, we can eliminate A, B, and E (the "just" in the latter didn't fix the issue).

Only C and D have the proper idiomatic construction: Just as X is something, so Y is also something.

In D, the pronoun "they" has no referent, so we can eliminate it. That leaves us with C.