Kanzen Master N1 Question Help - ほどのことではない vs ほどには当たらない


So I'm working my way through the Kanzen Master N1 book, having used it for
all the other levels and, generally, it's a great textbook. It's one flaw is
that it never has any explanations for the test questions, unlike the Reading
textbook, where it explains why the other answers are incorrect.

So I'm struggling with this question:

渡辺氏はある団体に多額の寄付をしたが、これは特に評価する（ ）と思う。彼には何か政治的意図があるのだ。

１．ほどのことではない ２．ほどには当たらない ３．までのことではない ４．までには当たらない

I answered 2. I answered it pretty quickly and was fairly sure it fit. It's
one of those questions where I read the whole thing, understood it fairly
easily and had a sense of what was needed. This makes it more annoying than a
question where you read it and have no idea. As far as I am aware, the
sentence should read something like:

"Although Mr. Watanabe has donated huge amounts to various groups, I think
it's not particularly worthy of praise. He has some political intentions."

The answer is obviously 1. Yet the Kanzen Master textbook describes には当たらない
as:

それほど大したことではないから～するのは適当ではない

感情的反応や評価が過度にならないように相手を抑制する言い方、感情・評価を表す動詞「驚く・悲観する・避難するなど」につく

I took that to mean:

"It's not a big deal (to that degree)~ so X is not appropriate/unsuitable.

It's way of speaking to restrain\calm\suppress others so they don't have an
excessive emotional response or evaluation of something"

Now, it's easier to understand it's use when it's with emotional verbs like 驚く
("there's no need to be surprised") but doesn't they explanation also cover
評価する in terms of "there's no need to admire/praise/evaluate (something to that
degree)"?

I asked a Japanese person and she immediately ruled out には当たらない and said it
was easy to discount those two answers, but when asked to explain, she said it
was difficult and that grammar just didn't feel right.

So I'm at a bit of a loss! Any help would be greatly appreciated.




You have to say one of:

  * 評価するほどのことではない
  * 評価するほどではない
  * 評価するにはあたらない (without ほど/まで)

The first two with ほど say it's not good _enough_ to be praised (although it's
appreciated to a certain degree). The last one just says it's not worth
praising (the author doesn't like it at all).

評価するまでのことではない may not be wrong, but it's at least very rare. There are zero
examples of までのことではない on BCCWJ, as compared to 25 examples of ほどのことではない.
評価するほどにはあたらない and 評価するまでにはあたらない sound unnatural to me, too (zero results on
BCCWJ). I'm not saying they are severely ungrammatical, but I don't usually
see sentences like these anyway.

