The solution below is taken from the GMATFix App.



-Patrick

The main problem we have here is one of Meaning. We're comparing the idea of biological emotions to conscious feelings. The ideas contrast, so we need a construction that makes that clear.

Since we have the word "and" separating two ideas, with modifying clauses attached to them, wouldn't it be nice if these things were all parallel (the GMAT sure loves its parallelism!)?

Even before we look at the answer choices, sometimes it's helpful (and/or fun) to mentally "re-write" the sentence in your own way to see how you can add the parallelism and clarify the meaning.

Scientists maintain that EMOTIONS, which..., EVOLVED to help animals survive and procreate, WHILE FEELINGS, which..., REFLECT.

For Parallelism's sake, it'd be nice if the "feelings are products of the conscious mind" could be in a "which" clause too, and a nice transition word like "while" was added. We might not get all of these things, but we can hope.

Let's start by removing what is not parallel: (A), (B), and (D) since that's a bonafide GMAT grammar error. (D) does include "which" but it doesn't modify "feelings," in the same way the first "which" clause modifies "emotions" so it's out.

Error #1: Parallelism

Now let's look closely at (C) and (E) to find a second error.

(E) confuses the meaning by adding the preceding "to" -- it's not that emotions evolved TO PROCREATE -- that makes no sense. Logically, it's the animals that are procreating. The verb tense "reflecting" is also an issue, but we can stop once we've found the first error.

Error #2: Meaning

Correct answer: (C)