Couple questions about "so as to":
- "so as to" means "in order to", right?
- Why is this wrong?

In 1527 King Henry VII sought to have his marriage to Queen Catherine annulled so as to marry Anne Boleyn.

If "so as to" means "in order to", the sentence *sounds* okay to me.

Thanks in advance.

Please post the entire question and answer choices. We often don't have our books available (I don't right now, actually) and others would like to study from your questions, too.

Sorry, I forgot to include the original question, and the question # is 36 not 35.

In 1527 King Henry VII sought to have his marriage to Queen Catherine annulled so as to marry Anne Boleyn.

A.
B. and so could be married to
C. to be married to
D. so that he could marry to
E. in order that he would marry to

It looks like you copied choice D incorrectly - it should be just 'so that he could marry', making it the correct answer. The biggest problem with A is that it's not as immediately clear that HE wants to marry A.B. (it takes a couple of readings-through, for me at least, to figure that out for sure).

'So as to' isn't often the correct answer in GMAT-ville. It's somewhat wordy and awkward, although it isn't always wrong (I can't refer you to an OG problem off the top of my head where it's right, though).

arrh, yes, you are right - I copied the answer D incorrectly.
I picked A because GMAT usually expected a concise answer.
I read the sentence couple times, then I figured out that "King Henry VII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn", but I thought that it was probably the probably the right answer because a native speaker might just read the sentence once and get the meaning. Unfortunately, I am not a native speaker, so I can't tell and get the correct answer =(

This is a tough question. Honestly, if I saw this as an experimental question, my first reaction would be something along the lines of 'Choice A isn't wrong enough to be an actual wrong answer.'

Hopefully you understand it now. Remember to file this problem away in your mental list of things that the GMAT does and doesn't like.