Margaret Mead, the best-known anthropologist of the twentieth century, helped shape public opinion on fundamentally impo

[BTGmoderatorDC]

Margaret Mead, the best-known anthropologist of the twentieth century, helped shape public opinion on fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, along with relative merits of competition and cooperation.

(A) shape public opinion on fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, along with

(B) shape public opinion in such fundamentally important areas as attitudes toward children and families and

(C) to shape public opinion about such fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, also about

(D) the shaping of public opinion for fundamentally important areas such as attitudes toward children and families, and those toward

(E) the shaping of public opinion around fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, and those of



OA B

Source: GMAT Prep

[rvgmat12]

Let's first get rid of choices A, C and E for using like to denote examples. Such ... as is the correct idiom to use. Now between B and D:

D is wrong on a few counts as below.
A. Helped the shaping of' is inferior to the bare infinitive 'helped (to)shape'.
B. 'For' fundamentally important areas - is a wrong idiom; 'in' fundamentally important areas is a better one.
C. In a list, when there are two items only it is not necessary to put a serial comma between the first and second items.
D . The difference between ' such important areas as' and "important areas such as':
When we say ' such important areas as' A and B, we mean that the cited A and B are the only two important areas. When we say, -important areas such as A and B ', we mean that there many more than those A and B. In this case, both facts could be true and hence, this split does not make a critical difference IMO.
B, sans these pitfalls, is the clear winner.