667. Spanning more than fifty years, Friedrich Muller began his career in an unpromising apprenticeship as a Sanskrit scholar and culminated in virtually every honor that European governments and learned societies could bestow.

(A) Muller began his career in an unpromising apprenticeship as
(B) Muller’s career began in an unpromising apprenticeship as
(C) Muller’s career began with the unpromising apprenticeship of being
(D) Muller had begun his career with the unpromising apprenticeship of being
(E) the career of Muller has begun with an unpromising apprenticeship of

Solution:

OG Solution:
The best answer, B, uses the logical and grammatically correct construction. Spanning more than fifty years, Friedrich Miiller's career began . . . and culminated. Note that the noun phrase appearing after the comma is modified by Spanning and serves as the subject of began and culminated. Choice A produces an illogical statement by placing Friedrich Miiller in this subject position. Choice C corrects this error but produces an unidiomatic construction by using apprenticeship of being instead of apprenticeship as. Choice D repeats both this error and the subject error of A. D and E needlessly change the simple past tense began to the past perfect had begun and the present perfect has begun, respectively, and E uses apprenticeship of, which is unidiomatic in this context.

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