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Antarctica

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by pnk » Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:01 am
Antarctica receives more solar radiation than does any other place on Earth, yet the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is reflective, so that little polar ice melts during the summer; otherwise, the water levels of the oceans would rise 250 feet and engulf most of the world's great cities.

A. is reflective, so that little polar ice melts during the summer; otherwise,
B. is so reflective that little of the polar ice melts during the summer; were it to do so,
C. so reflective that little polar ice melts during the summer, or else
D. reflective, so that little of the polar ice melts during the summer, or
E. reflects so that little of the polar ice melts during the summer; if it did

'the temperature are so cold and the ice cap is reflective' should be parallel => it sud hv been 'the temperature are so cold and the ice cap is so reflective'. It means only B & C remain. But in C...'is' missing => B correct. Though I picked up C with 2:15 time. I picked C because of 'were...so..." construction. Can someone explain how the clause 'were...so...' is appropaite usage here.
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by rockeyb » Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:25 am
Antarctica receives more solar radiation than does any other place on Earth, yet the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is reflective, so that little polar ice melts during the summer; otherwise, the water levels of the oceans would rise 250 feet and engulf most of the world's great cities.

A. is reflective, so that little polar ice melts during the summer; otherwise,
B. is so reflective that little of the polar ice melts during the summer; were it to do so,
C. so reflective that little polar ice melts during the summer, or else
D. reflective, so that little of the polar ice melts during the summer, or
E. reflects so that little of the polar ice melts during the summer; if it did

The sentence is checking for parallelism.

A. is reflective, so that little polar ice melts during the summer; otherwise,
[Cant find any grammatical mistake but lacks parallelism , eliminate]
B. is so reflective that little of the polar ice melts during the summer; were it to do so,
[IT here dose not have an antecedent , eliminate]
C. so reflective that little polar ice melts during the summer, or else
[Correct parallelism is maintained X AND Y .

X - temperatures are so cold

AND

Y - so reflective

SO ....THAT ...]
D. reflective, so that little of the polar ice melts during the summer, or
[The sentence unnecessarily creates two situation

X - little of the polar ice melts during the summer

OR

Y -the water levels of the oceans would rise 250 feet

So the sentence means either of the two actions will happen and that is not what the actual sentence means, eliminate].


E. reflects so that little of the polar ice melts during the summer; if it did
[subject temperatures(plural) reflects (singular) , eliminate]
"Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess"
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by tomada » Thu Mar 25, 2010 12:38 pm
This is interesting. The OA is (B), but several of us are still fighting for (C). Are we gluttons for incorrect answers, or is the OA incorrect?
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by rockeyb » Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:06 pm
tomada wrote:This is interesting. The OA is (B), but several of us are still fighting for (C). Are we gluttons for incorrect answers, or is the OA incorrect?

I am dead sure the OA is incorrect .

Look at my reasoning above , even if we argue that IT refers to ice cap fine .

Is an ice cap capable of performing any action that is being mentioned by DO SO , which in itself is ambiguous as to what action DO SO refers to ?


But B can not be the answer .
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by GMAT FAKER » Mon Apr 05, 2010 1:53 am
I go with B.

Only B and C have acceptable parallelism with the 'so' construction ('the temps are so cold and the ice cap [so] reflective...'), so it's down to those two.

C is badly worded, though, because it seems to imply that there are two possibilities of essentially equal probability (either (1) little polar ice melts OR ELSE (2) the water levels blah blah blah). That leaves B, which correctly implies that the melting of the ice is hypothetical. Hence, 'were it to do so' required to imply the hypothetical situation.

Experts pls explain.

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by iamtensai » Sat May 15, 2010 7:42 pm
rockeyb wrote: C. so reflective that little polar ice melts during the summer, or else
[Correct parallelism is maintained X AND Y .

X - temperatures are so cold

AND

Y - so reflective

SO ....THAT ...]
I would argue that the correct parallelism should be:

X - temperatures are so cold
AND
Y - ice caps is so reflective

...perfect parallelism.
Since X is noun + be + so + adj, Y should have the same structure

Another vote for B, the OA (and we should never question if the OA is wrong)
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by MakeUrTimeCount » Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:25 am
Hi,
Could someone please put some light on this.

Which one is better usage:
temperatures are so cold and the ice cap so reflective
OR
temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is so reflective

Thanks
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by Mahavir - Shubham » Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:52 am
I think the OA i.e B is correct. Apart from all the explations given above, i guess in option C, the latter part if the statement will not work with ...or else...doesn't sound right to me.
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by AbhiS » Sun Nov 03, 2013 2:01 pm
OA B

C is wrong for the following reasons
1) ice cap so reflective does not maintain proper parallelism with temperatures are so cold (we need - ice cap is so reflective)
2) little polar ice melts - literally it means tiny polar ice the intended meaning of the sentence is - little of the polar ice melts (we want little of something not little something)
3) or else - this usage is wrong here because its would mean - (either) the polar ice melts or the the water levels of the oceans would rise

Thanks
Abhi
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