'as'

[ashish.jere]

In the sixteenth century, the push for greater precision in measuring time was not, like more recently, motivated by complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, but the practical matters of navigation: sailors simply needed more highly accurate timepieces in order to compute their longitude form the positions of the stars.

A. not, like more recently, motivated by complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, but the practical matters of navigation

B.being motivated by the practical matters of navigation, instead of complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, as it has been recently

C.motivated not by complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, like they were more recently, but by the practical matters of navigation

D.motivated by the practical matters of navigation, not complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, which was the case more recently

E.motivated not by complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, as has been the case more recently, but by the practical matters of navigation

Source : Paper tests (sorry don't know owned by which company)

Also, I remember one of Ton's statements where in he had mentioned the usage of 'as' in prepositional phrases. Can somebody throw more light on that concept?

Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

A. not, like more recently, motivated by complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, but the practical matters of navigation

* you can't use "like" with things that aren't nouns or noun phrases (e.g., "more recently").

* bad parallelism.
after not... we find ...motivated by complicated philosophical questions...
after but... we find just the practical matters of navigation
not parallel.

B.being motivated by the practical matters of navigation, instead of complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, as it has been recently

* "being" is unnecessary.

* "as it has been recently" is incorrect: it modifies the wrong thing.
in particular, this modifier applies to
being motivated by the practical matters of navigation, instead of complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe"
the intended reference is just the "complicated philosophical questions..." part, but the problem is that "as it has been recently" must refer to something else that also contains a form of "to be".

C.motivated not by complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, like they were more recently, but by the practical matters of navigation

* you can't use "like" to refer to a clause (i.e., something with a subject and a verb - "they were")

* the pronoun "they" doesn't have an antecedent.
not only is there no plural noun for it to refer to in the first place, but, also, the clearly intended antecedent is "the push for greater precision in measuring time", which is singular.

D.motivated by the practical matters of navigation, not complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, which was the case more recently

* incorrect use of "which". recall that "which" must refer to the IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING NOUN; in this case, this means that "which" refers to "universe". that doesn't make any sense.
it should be "AS was the case".

* even if we use "AS was the case", there'd still be the problem of ambiguity: we wouldn't know whether that referred to the whole of
motivated by the practical matters of navigation, not complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe
...or just to
[motivated by] complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe

E.motivated not by complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, as has been the case more recently, but by the practical matters of navigation

CORRECT ANSWER (e)

* good parallelism:
BY complicated philosophical questions... after "not"
BY the practical matters... after "but"

* this is the TRADITIONAL USE OF "AS", to refer to a CLAUSE (note that there is a TENSED VERB "has been").

you should think of FORM OF "BE" + THE CASE as an idiomatically correct expression (i.e., there doesn't have to be a subject). it counts as a CLAUSE, since you have a tensed verb.
if this expression comes at the BEGINNING of a sentence, then you use "it" as the subject (no antecedent needed): "IT is the case that..."
this is in much the same way that you'd say "IT is impossible that...", etc.

[RonPurewal]

Also, I remember one of Ton's statements where in he had mentioned the usage of 'as' in prepositional phrases. Can somebody throw more light on that concept?

Thanks.

i'll assume i'm "ton". are you calling me fat? i weigh more like 1/9 ton... heh heh

with PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES, you use "AS", not "like".
ex:
in the 14th century, AS in the preceding several centuries, many wars were fought between neighboring countries.

[ashish.jere]

Thanks Ron.

[RonPurewal]

Thanks Ron.

you got it