In medieval times, Libya was the principal corridor for the transmission of goods by merchants between Europe and Africa.

a) for the transmission of goods by merchants between
b) in which the transmission of merchants' goods took place among
c) where the transmission of merchants' goods occurred between
d) which was transmitting merchants' goods among
e) through which merchants' goods were transmitted between

Source : 800score.com

Could someone please explain why A is wrong...

Thanks

What is the OA?

My pick is E

B & D use among for 2 countries. out

water flows through the hole or conduit

Also A is passive voice, which can be avoided when there are answer choices in active voice

I like A.

The trouble with A is that "between Europe and Africa" is modifying "merchants." The intended meaning appears to be that the goods were transmitted between Europe and Africa.

I think the word corridor can be replaced with passageway.

B&D are out because the use among.

A-says Libya was the passageway for the trading of A by B between C and D. This comes across as super wordy, passive, awkward.

C uses the word "where" and this makes it seem like the trading actually happened in Libya when the original sentence says makes us think that the country just served as a passageway. It also uses the word "occurred" which could've been avoided if the sentence was written correctly.

E is my favorite choice because it modifies the word "corridor" with the word "through" and immediately and concisely introduces merchants & goods.
The "for, of, by between" construction in A is reduced to "were, between".

This was a really tough one and I think the E is easier to defend then any other selection.

(a)
as rey said, the meaning here is at best ambiguous, and at worst plain wrong: the sentence can be taken to mean that the merchants themselves, not the trade, were located between europe and africa.

(c)
this sentence doesn't have the right meaning, either: it says that the transmission "occurred between europe and africa". this doesn't imply that the goods were actually in transit from one of these continents to the other; taken literally, it means that the transmission "occurred" at some point, and that this point is located somewhere between europe and africa.
analogy:
the accident occurred between shepherdsville and elizabethtown on i-75 --> this doesn't mean that the accident spanned the entire distance between those two towns.
same goes for the "transmission" mentioned in this sentence, although harder to see because the interpretation is somewhat absurd in the first place.

(e)
the construction "transmitted between" makes it clear that the transmission actually took place between one continent and the other.
also, "through which" is precise: actually means that transmission of goods took place through the corridor.

(b) (d)
as mentioned above, these are automatically wrong because they use the word "among", which can't be employed unless there are three or more things.

correct = e