splitting apart continents

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splitting apart continents

by ronsom » Fri May 28, 2010 8:28 pm
New theories propose that catastrophic impacts of asteroids and comets may have caused reversals in the Earth's magnetic field, the onset of ice ages, splitting apart continents 80 million years ago, and great volcanic eruptions.

A) splitting apart continents
B) the splitting apart of continents
C) split apart continents
D) continents split apart
E) continents that were split apart

[spoiler]OG10 describes option B as the best, because it maintains parallelism.
From what I can recall, the rule of parallelism says that either all components maintain the parallel state,
or the first component has an extra word.

With option (B):- "the" oneset of ice ages, "the" splitting apart of continents 80 million years ago, and "----" great volcanic eruptions
With option (A):- "the" oneset of ice ages, "----" splitting apart of continents 80 million years ago, and "----" great volcanic eruptions[/spoiler]
Last edited by ronsom on Fri May 28, 2010 8:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by adi_800 » Fri May 28, 2010 8:31 pm
The two nouns, onset and eruptions, are parallel to the noun created out of the verb split. The splitting of....is a gerund acting as a noun and parallel to onset and eruptions..

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