pollution happened as soon as oil leaked, so the use of present participle "polluting" is more appropriate

Neha one quick question?
is this the part of new gmat prep soft..


I would have also made the mistake of marking A .
On carefully looking..
IMO C makes sense..

A: can be wrong because of 2 reasons:

1. Oil barage ran off the coast.... did this action leak the cargo No. so we don't require a participle modifier to modify the action
2. while causing the pollution of...Uh.... Such a awkward sentence...

C for me as well.

Whenever there is cause and its effect described in the sentence, use the "ing" form of the verb to describe the effect.

IMO C.
"ran" should have "leak" in the past tense to keep the ideas parallel and logical. So search for "leaked" and eliminate the rest. From the remaining.
eliminate D and E, coz we need an coordinating conjunction since the two thoughts are parallel, and 'ran' and 'leaked' indicate the two actions happened almost simultaneously or as a cause and effect.

my vote too for c what is the oa like