Those skeptical of the extent of global warming argue that short-term temperature data are an inadequate means of predicting long-term trends and point out that the scientific community remains divided on whether significant warming will occur and what impact will it have if it does.
A. on whether significant warming will occur and what impact will it have if it does.
B. on whether warming that occurs will be significant and the impact it would have.
C. as to whether significant warming will occur or the impact it would have if it did.
D. over whether there will be significant warming or the impact it will have.
E. over whether significant warming will occur and what impact it would have

This is a GMATPREP2 question.
What is the correct answer and errors in other choices?

It should be either B or E but now sure which is the correct one?

On the exam day i would have picked B.

I think something to do with IDIOM.

Saurabh Malpani

hmm... i like (a) best, but only if it was supposed to say 'it will', and you mis-typed it as 'will it'. if the version you've typed is indeed faithful to the original, then, well, all the choices suck.

reasons:
- 'divided on' is the preferred idiom.
- 'whether...' and 'what impact...' are parallel.
- the meaning is correct.
- the tenses are parallel: 'will occur' || 'will have'.

choice b:
- the original sentence clearly indicates that scientists don't know whether warming will occur in the first place. this wording, though, assumes that warming will occur; according to this sentence, the only thing in doubt is the extent of such warming.
- 'whether...' is not parallel to 'impact'.

choice c:
- 'as to' is dicey.
- 'or' should be 'and' (because they're wondering about both questions).
- past tense 'did' is inappropriate.

choice d:
- 'or' should be 'and'.
- 'divided over' isn't as good as 'divided on'.
- 'whether...' isn't parallel to 'the impact'.

choice e:
- 'divided over' isn't as good as 'divided on'.
- tense inconsistency: 'will occur' isn't parallel to 'would have'. moreover, 'would have' isn't appropriate for the consequences of something that hasn't even happened yet.

what's the oa?

Ron, can you please explain the following about choice A (I have used 'it will' instead of 'will it' for sake of argument):

A. on whether significant warming will occur and what impact it will have if it does.

Because 'it' can only refer to a noun and not to a sentence, how can the second 'it' be correct? Isn't choice A reading: 'on whether significant warming will occur and what impact this warming will have if this warming does.' --> which is incorrect...

Please provide some insight. Thanks.

warming is what's called a gerund here; gerunds are '-ing' forms of verbs that count as nouns. since the gerund counts as a noun, it's an adequate antecedent for 'it'.

hope that helps. if you want more examples, go ahead and post a reply saying so.

I see this question today.
OA is E.
Could you explain more?

ok, well: if choice a actually has the original wording posted at the beginning of this thread ('will it' instead of 'it will'), then it's definitely wrong. 'will it' is only ok in the context of a question ('will it rain tomorrow?'), and can't be used as a noun phrase.

process of elimination:
first, i hope it's clear that we want AND, not OR. according to the context of the problem, the scientific community is divided on both of these issues (you don't get a choice between them), so 'and' makes more sense than 'or'.

that leaves choices b and e.

use PARALLELISM to resolve that dilemma:
choice b uses whether... and the impact in parallel.
choice e uses whether... and what impact... in parallel.
thus, choice e has better parallelism.
(incidentally, the same parallelism issue can also be used to get rid of answers c and d, the ones containing 'or')

hope that helps.

we can justify 'would' here by saying that it's a case of the subjunctive mood, which isn't often used in contexts like this one. they're using 'would' instead of 'will' because the occurrence whose consequences are being considered is hypothetical.

Hi Ron,
I still feel E is ambiguous. It says - whether significant warming will occur and what impact it would have (if it occurred or if it didn't occur) ??
Can you please clarify how its not ambiguous in meaning ?

the most important way in which i can answer this comment is to point out that it doesn't matter whether you 'feel' that (e) is ambiguous; the official answer is that it isn't, so you should reframe your concept of ambiguity to fit in line with theirs (at least until you take the test).

but:
i'm with them on this one.
the 'it' refers to the event in question (significant warming), so it's clear that 'would have' refers to the event in which the significant warming DOES happen.

whenever you're questioning this sort of ambiguity, it can help to construct ANALOGIES. here is one:
having never seen a tornado, i have no idea of the impact it could have on my house.
same idea: this sentence very clearly refers to the impact of a tornado that actually happens!
it would be absurd to talk about the impact of an EVENT that DOESN'T happen. if you want to refer to the effects of the absence of something, then you need to rephrase the statement to express that idea more clearly (i.e., using words such as 'absence', 'lack', etc.)