Hello everyone,

______, the mountain climbers conquered Mount Qomolangma in the end.
A. As the difficulty was great
B. Great as the difficulty was
C. Great difficulty as it was
D. Great as was the difficulty
Key:B

I learned that natives don't like much about "as" or even "though" in such sentence patterns. In China, we have been being taught that "as" equals "though" when they are used in sentences like B. And also we are told to be mindful that "as" may mean "because".

With that, I feel B is correct, and here "as" means "though", not "because".
I have no problem with D because I was taught here yesterday that its word order is wrong or badly out of date. Option A doesn't fit, with "As" sounding like "because."

What about the option C? What are those reasons behind?
(1) We don't know much clearly what "it" refers to or something else?
(2) The above said though-because problem?


Many many thanks.

I think the main problem is the "it".

Really, an "it" (as a subject) in one clause usually refers to the noun (subject) in the other clause.

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So "it" should refer to "the mountain climbers" - which does not make sense (this is a plural noun). The only thing which is mentioned which could be an "it" is Mount Qomolangma.

To follow this rule, Mount Qomolangma would have to be used as the subject of the second clause:

Great difficulty as it was, Mount Qomolangma was climbed in the end.

However, this does not work well either - because the difficulty was the climbing, not the mountain.
A mountain just sits there doing nothing, it's not a difficulty.

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The only way I can see to make it work is to make "the climbing" into a subject.

Great difficulty as it was, the climbing of Mount Qomolangma was achieved in the end.
Not the best-sounding sentence, but it seems OK.

Thank you all.
And especially thank you for your excellent explanation, Drag0nspeaker.