A little under a million years ago, the briny waters of the Baltic Sea

I choose option D. We need to have parallelism between 2 adjectives. "gradual" is an adjective and so is "cataclysmic."

(D)

(A) whether the flood was gradual or created a cataclysm
(B) if the flood was gradual or created a cataclysm
(C) about whether the flood was gradual or cataclysmic
(D) whether the flood was gradual or cataclysmic
(E) whether the flood was gradual or it created a cataclysm

can someone pl explain whats wrong with E?

Firstly the parallelism. 2ndly look for Meaning in E. in X OR Y both X & Y should make sense together. Here it doesn't.

'whether' is used when you have alternatives as in 'this or this'. 'if' is used when you have only one option. In the question above, since its about flood being gradual or not, we have to chose 'whether' instead of 'if.

Looking into option A, D and E -here comes the parallelism. A or B
So the answer is D - whether the flood was 'gradual' or 'cataclysmic'

Parallelism + Idiom

A is wrong because the things before and after ‘or’ are not parallel; i.e. “was gradual” and “created a cataclysm” are not parallel.
B is wrong because ‘whether’ is always better than ‘if’.
C uses an extra word ‘about’. We never debate ‘about’ something, we debate ‘over’ something.
E repeats the mistake in A.
D is the best choice.

Hi everyone,
What is the problem with parallelism in option-E
The flood was gradual OR It created a cataclysm.
On either side of "OR" we have clauses or should it shall be read as:
Whether the flood was gradual OR It created a cataclysm.

We require whether on both side of OR to treat it as parallel.

A little under a million years ago, the briny waters of the Baltic Sea began flooding into the cold North Atlantic: geologists are still debating whether the flood was gradual or created a cataclysm.

(A) whether the flood was gradual or created a cataclysm The items of the list (X or Y) are not parallel - "gradual" is an adjective whereas "created" is a verb. Eliminate.

(B) if the flood was gradual or created a cataclysm "if" is to be used only when there is a condition ("if X then Y"). When debating between choices, the correct usage is "whether. Eliminate.

(C) about whether the flood was gradual or cataclysmic "debating about" is incorrect - it should just be "debating X". Eliminate.

(D) whether the flood was gradual or cataclysmic Correct answer. X or Y parallelism is maintained with both being adjectives and no new errors are introduced.

(E) whether the flood was gradual or it created a cataclysm Same error as (A). Eliminate.

Hope this helps.

D is correct answer parallelism as well as concise..
About seems redundant..

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Hi @egamt

I am unable to identify issue(s) in Option E and Option A:

In option E:

Both the list contains clause

List 1: whether the flood was gradual (here verb : "was" and object "gradual")

List 2: whether it created a cataclysm (here verb: "created". Since flood did the action of "creating cataclysm" hence "created cannot be considered verb-ed modifier.)

Q.1 : I understand the two lists are structurally identical since both are clause. Pls confirm if my understanding is correct.

Q-2: Even though both lists are identical however both lists do NOT talk about same issue:

List-1 talks about how the flood is ---- it is gradual

But lists-2 talks about some action which was done by flood and does not talks about flood.

Since the lists does not talks about same issue hence it because of this reason it is not parallel. Pls confirm my understanding.