Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by traveling west.

A.Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by sailing west.
B.Rather than accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to see if he could reach India by sailing west.
C.Instead of accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus sailed west to see whether he could reach India, having been sent by the king and queen of Spain.
D.Rather than accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus sailed west to see whether he could reach India, having been sent by the king and queen of Spain.
E.Instead of accepting the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, Christopher Columbus was sent by the king and queen of Spain to sail west to see if he could reach India.
Source:MGMAT


i could narrow down the choice to C and D. The given explanation for eliminating C is that, for comparing verbs "rather than" is the preferable. Then where can we use "Instead of ". Please look into following sentences. In these sentences, is "instead of" used to compare verbs?

Instead of charging for each shrink-wrapped box, firms can sell programs as a service, collecting monthly payments, or giving them away and earning money from advertisements- economist

My mother would rather we emailed each other once a week instead of spending half an hour on the phone every night.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv107.shtml

please explain... thanks

Kris

Hi Kris,

Thanks for your message. Long story short: we went a little far on this question, and so we're flagging it for revision so that C is more clearly wrong.

There IS a crucial difference between "rather than" and "instead of" that you should know. "Rather than" is a conjunction and so can be followed by basically anything, whereas "instead of" is a (complex) preposition -- and a preposition should be followed only by a noun.

Now, the noun can be an "-ing" verb, known as a gerund. So, the sentences you quote are not grammatically wrong in this regard. However, the GMAT seems to prefer "rather than" in comparisons of verbs, because the parallelism is clearest:

(1) "I ski rather than snowboard." -- Correct.
(2) "I ski instead of snowboarding." -- Correct, but a 'little' less parallel, so (1) is slightly preferable. The GMAT probably won't test this point in isolation, though, so we're going to revise the question.

You can also use "rather than" to compare phrases or clauses. In that context, "instead of" is absolutely wrong, even though it's heard in spoken English:
(3) "I went in the cellar rather than in the attic." -- Correct.
(4) "I went in the cellar instead of in the attic." -- INCORRECT although this 'sounds' normal to me, to be honest! (That's why you have to retrain your ear -- it's not always grammatically right!)
(5) "I went in the cellar instead of the attic." -- Also correct. No difference in preference between (3) and (5).

As for the meaning of the two expressions -- to my ear, they have slightly different connotations or nuances ("instead of" sounds more like an actual replacement to me than "rather than," which is somehow softer), but the GMAT doesn't seem to test that connotational difference.

So -- when in doubt, go with "rather than"!

Hope this is helpful!

thanks Christian Ryan for your prompt reply. With your explanation, I could now confidently answer such questions.

Since i see the sentences using "instead of" as in Choice C in my reading, i am confused over the usage of "instead of".

thanks

kris

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