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1. Choice B seems wrong because "once" is redundant. The sentence makes more sense as such--
"As a result of [medicine], many people who might have died in childhood[] now live well into old age."
This is why I was quick to eliminate B.
Here's the essence of the sentence: the type of people who
used to die during childhood, now survive to be adults because those diseases are now preventable or curable. (Maybe it's because I'm a dad now, but it's amazing how grim GMAT sentences are sometimes.)
"Once" is playing the same role as "in the past" - communicating that a state of affairs used to be the case, but isn't any longer. Do we need "once?" I guess you could debate it. But it basically means the same thing as "at one time." Every answer choice contains either "once" or "at one time," so there's no reason to waste our time worrying about it.
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Here the placement of "in childhood" does not seem to be the problem, except that option D is wordier by awkwardly placing "at one time".
In (D), we have: "who in childhood might have at one time died." If we read this strictly and literally, it's hard to make any sense of the meaning. In childhood, they may have died at one time, as opposed to having died at another time in childhood? Or: they may have at one time died, but now at one time do something other than die? Huh?
So I guess I would argue that the meaning is warped in (D), and that's a worse crime than wordiness or awkwardness.
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3. Aside from being wordy, does E have any errors?
In (E), we've got: "...who, when they were children, might at one time have died."
If we read this strictly and literally, it seems to be saying this: when they were children they might have died, but now that they're not children... they won't die?
Notice that in both (D) and (E), moving the modifier "at one time" creates strange meanings.
So (B) is easily the most logical and most concise option. But the topic is still pretty darned grim.
I hope this helps!
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