Nuclear fusion is the force that powers the Sun, the stars, and hydrogen bombs, merging the nuclei of atoms and not splitting them apart, as in nuclear reactors.

(A) merging the nuclei of atoms and not splitting them apart, as in nuclear reactors
(B) merging the nuclei of atoms instead of splitting them apart, like nuclear reactors
(C) merging the nuclei of atoms rather than splitting them apart, as nuclear reactors do
(D) and merges the nuclei of atoms but does not split them apart, as is done in nclear reactors
(E) and merges the nuclei of atoms, unlike atomic reactors that split them apart

Source: GMAT Prep

The OA is E, but I don't like E because 'unlike atomic reactors that split them apart' seems to be a sentence fragment and unlike is comparing Nuclear fusion (a process) with atomic reactors (a thing). I went with c because the participial phrase made sense. Can someone please explain the error of my ways? Thanks.

[Edited by Stacey. The official answer is C, not E. Please read my post below. The nutshell: Do NOT pull questions from other web sites and post here - get them from the actual source only (in this case, GMATPrep).]

holy mackadooderel, this problem is ugly.

i concur 100% with everything you say about choice e, and, like you, i find choice c least unattractive.

i also wish to raise a couple of other issues:
- the gmat seems to like the idiom 'split apart', which also appears in question #117 in the og 11th edition (i'm not allowed to say any more than that here). this idiom is uncharacteristic of the gmat, as it's technically redundant (how else would you split something?), but i guess they like it.
what good are rules, i guess, if you have to follow them all the time? :S
- the comma after 'bombs' strongly suggests the coming of an adverbial modifier (as in choice c).

are you *sure* choice c isn't the oa?

if this is indeed a real gmat prep question and choice e is 'correct', then excuse me while i go throw up.

After staring at this post for the past 15 minutes, I have been able to convince myself why Choice (E) is right. One thing I have noticed about GMAT is that when it uses "like" or "unlike" for comparison purposes, it likes to place the like/unlike phrase far, far away from the noun that is meant to be compared.

I chose Choice (C) initially as well. Obviously, I have since tried to figure out why it is not the most desirable - or, how it could be wrong. Could the mistake lie in the subtle lack of parallelism in the verb tense? See below.

(C) merging the nuclei of atoms rather than splitting them apart, as nuclear reactors do

Merging and splitting are in the present perfect / gerund form (sorry if I am mis-using the grammar technical terms), but do is simply present. For example, people would say:

"He is biking towards the shop, and so are we."
"He bikes towards the shop, and so do we."

But, people would not say:

"He is biking towards the shop, and so do we."

Could this issue be it?

Thanks!

Oh, boy. Multiple things here, guys - please read carefully.

The official answer is C, not E. This is an OG11 problem. It may also appear in GMATPrep, but it appears that roygbiv did not pull this question either from OG11 OR GMATPrep b/c then s/he wouldn't have thought E was the official answer.

So, I've said it before but I'm going to repeat myself:

DO NOT PULL QUESTIONS FROM OTHER RANDOM WEB SITES AND POST THEM HERE.

Other sites have many errors in transcription and nobody monitoring to make sure these errors get fixed. We have errors too - but at least we research them and fix them. Already, we've got dataiwandude trying to figure out what's wrong with C and memorize that for future use... when C is the right answer. And many other users are doing this too, though they haven't posted here. That is potentially disastrous.

Once again, get GMATPrep questions from the source, only.

And remember that you get what you pay for - if you're going to study from unaccountable free online sources that don't have a vested business interest in maintaining a top-notch reputation... then take everything with a grain of salt.

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Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

Hi

Thanks for the OA Stacey...

Ron could you please explain what led you to expect the adverbial modifier...if there are any rules which can be applied generically... would be really helpful.
Also I couldn't figure out what it is modifying... Nuclear fusion itself ??

" the comma after 'bombs' strongly suggests the coming of an adverbial modifier (as in choice c). "

Thanks in Advance
Anon

in retrospect, there are plenty of other things that could come after the comma, including:
* subordinate clause (...bombs, although...)
* adjective modifier (...bombs, which do this and that)

i guess i've seen so many of these problems by now that i just get a 6th sense of when certain grammatical structures are coming.

participle (V-ing) after the comma can not modify the subject of the preceding clause's noun.
I think it modifies the way fusion powers the sun.??

Pathik

Could someone explain me what is the actual meaning which the author of wants to convey...as in:
1)Nuclear reactors merge the nuclei of atoms rather than split them apart..and Nuclear fusion does the same thing..
OR
2)Nuclear reactors split the nuclei apart whereas Nuclear fusion merges them.

I feel the Option C suggests 1) whereas Option E suggest 2)
Since author's intent is 2), OA should be E and not C

Could some expert elaborate?

Thanks,

correct.

you know, i was troubled by this ambiguity too.
if the final comma were missing (...rather than splitting them apart as nuclear reactors do), then the ambiguity would be gone: that phrasing would mean that nuclear reactors split the nuclei apart, in contrast to what happens in the sun.
perhaps the comma is missing from choice (c), and the original poster included it unthinkingly? (i can hope)

otherwise, yes, there seems to be an ambiguity. if that's the case, then, rather than continuing to argue about it, we can sit back and realize that we have learned an important lesson about the hierarchical order in which the gmat applies certain principles.

Is choice D correct because it uses Passive voice?
Thanks

That is one reason. Another is the "and merges" instead of "merging". The problem is that the "and merges" makes it sound like nuclear fusion is doing two different things: it powers stuff and it merges atoms. But, as a, b, and c make clear, it (nuclear fusion) powers stuff *by* merging atoms. Merging atoms is the mechanism. So D and E erroneously imply that are two independent processes: powering and merging. A, B, and C make clear that there is one action (powering) and a mechanism responsible for that powering (merging atoms).

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I'm confused with choice C. If we follow the ellipsis rule, the ending would be like the following:

"as nuclear reactors do split".

But the word "split" doesn't appear anywhere in the sentence!

Shouldn't the ending be:

"as nuclear reactors are"?

This way, when we show the omitted word, the sentence would be:

"as nuclear reactors are splitting"

And "splitting" did show up in the sentence.

I had recently learned this rule but was shocked with this question this question :(

Can someone explain how can C be correct in this regard?

Thanks a lot.

hmmm yeah, i'm sort of dismayed by that, too.

i guess that this sort of thing is fine, as well - given that it appears in an officially correct answer (!)

we have just learned a new TAKEAWAY about the use of "do" + elision: apparently, that construction may also be used to refer to preceding -ing forms.

thanks for noticing this.

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Perfect.

Thanks a lot Ron :)