asteroid

[thanghnvn]

from gmatprep

I am totally lost on this one. pls, help .

Scientists have identified an asteroid, 2000 BF19, that is about half a mile wide and, if it strikes Earth, it can do tremendous damage to part of the planet but probably not cause planetwide destruction.
A. and, if it strikes Earth, it can do tremendous damage to part of the planet but
B. and, if it would strike Earth, part of the planet could experience a tremendous amount of damage but it would
C. and that, if it were to strike Earth, could do tremendous damage to part of the planet but would
D. and that, if Earth is struck by it, can do part of the planet tremendous damage, but it would
E. and that, if it strikes Earth, it could experience a tremendous amount of damage but

[thanghnvn]

sory for post second time

I find nothing wrong with

the scientists discovered the star and it can damage the earth

but the above sentence is not intended meaning of the problem and

A is wrong

Am I correct?

if the above sentence stand alone, it is right. But it stands by C, it is wrong.

In many SC problem, I see gmat think this way.

for example the question: "industry output in US...." in OG10

Am I correct

Ron, members, pls, help

[RonPurewal]

when you look at these sentences with "and", you need to figure out what should be grouped -- in other words, which ideas are meant to be expressed in parallel structure.

in this sentence, those two ideas are the two facts about the asteroid:
* the asteroid is about 1/2 mile wide.
* if the asteroid strikes earth, blah blah blah xxxxx will happen.

look at how (a) is written:
(Scientists have identified an asteroid, 2000 BF19, that is about half a mile wide) and, (if it strikes Earth, it can do tremendous damage to part of the planet but probably not cause planetwide destruction.)
this grouping doesn't make sense.

look at how (c) is written:
Scientists have identified an asteroid, 2000 BF19, (that is about half a mile wide) and (that, if it were to strike Earth, could do xxxx)
this is the correct grouping.

[thanghnvn]

on gmat, we have 3 if-then patterns

if do, then will do /can do
if did, then would do/could do
if had done, then would have done/could have done

is that thing right?

[RonPurewal]

on gmat, we have 3 if-then patterns

if do, then will do /can do
if did, then would do/could do
if had done, then would have done/could have done

is that thing right?

these three patterns are valid, provided that they make sense in context. remember that verb tenses can NEVER be memorized -- they are always a function of the timeframe and intention of the sentence.

these are certainly not the only possible uses of "if... then", but they are valid. (in general, a complete list is not something that we are going to be able to give you, for reasons that i wrote about here:
post60919.html#p60919)

[ishamehta2401]

I was stuck between a and c, eventually i went with 'a' option.
I was not sure about 'c' as I thought usage of would with probably is redundant.

and that, if it were to strike Earth, could do tremendous damage to part of the planet but would

Any body from the staff please clear my doubt.

[jnelson0612]

I was stuck between a and c, eventually i went with 'a' option.
I was not sure about 'c' as I thought usage of would with probably is redundant.

and that, if it were to strike Earth, could do tremendous damage to part of the planet but would

Any body from the staff please clear my doubt.

"would" and "probably" are different parts of speech and have different meanings, so they are not redundant.
--"probably" is an adverb that means "very likely"
--"would" is a verb that is the past tense version of "will", among other uses

[sachin.w]

I understand C is correct but I don't understand why 'that' is omitted after 'but' and before 'would'..

I believe 'that' was needed to maintain parallelism.
Kindly help. .

[tim]

could do damage but would not cause

that is perfectly parallel. what makes you think "could" and "would" are not parallel?

[supratim7]

Scientists have identified an asteroid, 2000 BF19, that is about half a mile wide and, if it strikes Earth, it can do tremendous damage to part of the planet but probably not cause planetwide destruction.

C. and that, if it were to strike Earth, could do tremendous damage to part of the planet but would
D. and that, if Earth is struck by it, can do part of the planet tremendous damage, but it would

Got it correct but couldn't eliminate (D) decisively

I can spot one issue between (C) & (D)
"do X to Y" vs "do Y X"

(1) Is the issue mentioned above a major one, good enough to dump (D)?
(2) Are there any bigger issues with (D)?

Thank you

[jlucero]

Scientists have identified an asteroid, 2000 BF19, that is about half a mile wide and, if it strikes Earth, it can do tremendous damage to part of the planet but probably not cause planetwide destruction.

C. and that, if it were to strike Earth, could do tremendous damage to part of the planet but would
D. and that, if Earth is struck by it, can do part of the planet tremendous damage, but it would

Got it correct but couldn't eliminate (D) decisively

I can spot one issue between (C) & (D)
"do X to Y" vs "do Y X"

(1) Is the issue mentioned above a major one, good enough to dump (D)?
(2) Are there any bigger issues with (D)?

Thank you

I agree with the preference of "do X to Y", but I wouldn't say it's a definitive issue.
I'd say one major split in C/D is the difference between could/can:

C) If it were to strike Earth, the asteroid could do tremendous damage.
D) If Earth is struck by it, the asteroid can do part of the planet tremendous damage.

Generally when you use "if" you should use the conditional "could" rather than "can".

Finally, there's a slightly ambiguous "it" in D that I don't like because asteroid is so far away and planet is much closer. This would be the least important issue in my mind, but one big issue and two minor issues is a good reason to eliminate D.

[supratim7]

I'd say one major split in C/D is the difference between could/can:

C) If it were to strike Earth, the asteroid could do tremendous damage.
D) If Earth is struck by it, the asteroid can do part of the planet tremendous damage.

Generally when you use "if" you should use the conditional "could" rather than "can".

Yes, that's a big one.
Thank you Joe :)

[RonPurewal]

(2) Are there any bigger issues with (D)?

Thank you

Yeah, there's a huge issue.

They've identified an asteroid that is about 1/2 miles wide and that can cause xxx damage, but it would probably not xxxxx.

Not parallel.

[gourav.arya]

Dear Ron,

I think, as far as parallelism is concerned, both "that" should have the same function in the sentence. But here, first "that" is a demonstrative pronoun referring to the asteroid and the second "that" is a relative pronoun that starts a clause.

had the second part of the sentence been "..and if that were to strike Earth.." wouldn't it have made more sense as far as parallelism is concerned.

Im not questioning the official answer, just wanted to clarify my doubt regarding the parallelism aspect of the sentence.

Seek your advise please.

[RonPurewal]

Dear Ron,

I think, as far as parallelism is concerned, both "that" should have the same function in the sentence. But here, first "that" is a demonstrative pronoun referring to the asteroid and the second "that" is a relative pronoun that starts a clause.

I don't know any of these terms, so I can't speak to whether you are correct about the terms.

Both instances of "that" do, however, have the same function.

If you take out the extra modifier with commas ("if it were to strike earth"), you get...
... that is about 1/2 mile wide
... that could do tremendous damage to xxxx

These two instances of "that" are exactly the same.
Here is an asteroid that is about 1/2 mile wide.
Here is an asteroid that could do tremendous damage to xxxx.


Because their function is exactly the same, I'd imagine that they are not properly labeled by two different terms. Much more importantly, though -- even if they are two different terms, that distinction can't help you. It will hurt you.
Do not concentrate on naming grammar things. If you name everything, you won't be able to notice similarities between things with different names.