Knowledge of the winter behaviour of emperor penguins has

Knowledge of the winter behaviour of emperor penguins has been gained slowly because of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make the Antarctic habitats of the emperors dangerous places for humans in winter.

A. of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards makeof repeated twice
B. of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, with frequently sudden blizzards, makeof repeated twice
C. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards makeCorrect
D. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness, with frequent sudden blizzards, makinglist of items - needs and rather than with
E. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards makingmaking is incorrect - needs a working verb

First of all the original question has a minor error because the "of" before the underlines portion has been excluded. I believe it should be part of the underlined portion.

So the corrected version should look like,

Knowledge of the winter behaviour of emperor penguins has been gained slowly because of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make the Antarctic habitats of the emperors dangerous places for humans in winter.

A. of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make
B. of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, with frequently sudden blizzards, make
C. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards make
D. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness, with frequent sudden blizzards, making
E. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards makin

The opening statement states that the "Knowledge of X has been gained slowly because of high winds, blah blah blah". So you mean to say that the knowledge has been gained slowly BECAUSE of high winds? This doesn't even make sense. The knowledge has been gained slowly because some factors make it hard for humans to stay in that region.

Therefore, A & B are out

No need to use the -ing verb form, we dont need to imply any progressive action. Moreover D states, "X,Y, the fact of Z" which is a parallelism error so D is out.
E has no parallelism issue but uses "making" vs "make" so that's out too.

In conclusion, if you eliminate the middlemen the correct sentence will look like this,

The knowledge of X has been gained slowly because A, B, C and D, make the habitats dangerous places for humans - A, B, C and D need to be parallel and follow the same form.

C fixes all the issues.

How can C be correct? Because of....make?
Doesn't make much sense to me.
Could someone please elaborate on this? I picked D cause transitive verb making had more sense.

Please let me know, will you?
Cheers
J:)

Kudos rain!

Hi,

C is right here because uses a list of reasons followed by verb "make" which is the right structure.

In D , the list of reasons is followed by a verbal starting with "making" which makes the part after "because" a fragment.

Knowledge of the winter behaviour of emperor penguins has been gained slowly because of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make the Antarctic habitats of the emperors dangerous places for humans in winter.

This is the edited format; without editing, it will be pointless to attempt to solve the question without the edited version.
1. First, ‘'because of ' is a prepositional phrase. Hence, a verb would not suit the context. A and B are out.

2. On the contrary, because is a subordinate conjunction. A present participle such as ‘making’ would make the sentence verbless and a fragment. Therefore, D and E are out.

3. The remaining C is the final winner. The wrong combinations are highlighted below.


A. of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make
B. of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, with frequently sudden blizzards, make
C. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards make -- correct

D. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness, with frequent sudden blizzards, making
E. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards making

For those struggling to see why the option is correct.

Knowledge... has been gained ....because of ....winds, [because of] temperatures ...., [because of] .... darkness, and [because] .... blizzards make the Antarctic habitats ...

I am still unsure why E is the correct ans. As per me option C should be the correct ans.

Two problems with C:

1. The meaning conveyed is problematic - the second clause (frequent sudden blizzards make...) does not have any relation to the first clause.

2. "And" is missing before "round-the-clock darkness" ("frequent sudden blizzards" is not a part of the list in this case).

Please note that this question is from an unknown source, so the answer choices may not be well worded, phrased, or have much resemblance to the official questions.

Knowledge of the winter behaviour of emperor penguins has been gained slowly because of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make the Antarctic habitats of the emperors dangerous places for humans in winter.

Considering 'of' in the options A and B as typo.

A. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make
Breaks the parallel structure.
B. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, with frequently sudden blizzards, make
Breakes the parallel structure.
C. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards make
'make' would have made sense if there was no 'of' after 'because' in the prompt. 'because of X, Y, and Z make...' is something hard for me to digest.
D. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness, with frequent sudden blizzards, making
Breakes the parallel structure.
E. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards making
Parallel structure maintained. But, there is no comma before 'making' so I think 'making' only modifies 'blizzards'

In light of all the errors I could point out, I chose option E. Experts, please suggest.

Hi, don't you think such questions be deleted from forum as these can do more harm than anything else? If you notice the option A should be exactly worded and it is not.
Thanks.

The question was indeed carelessly written. However some modifications have now been made so as to get rid of the confusion caused.

Marked E. But I have a query as below:

Knowledge was gained because of A, B, C and D. Can we say all these are noun phrases? And as per definition/preference, because of should modify verbs and not noun?

No, this reasoning is not correct.
"Because of" correctly refers to the verb "has been gained". The noun phrases would follow irrespective of using because of / due to. The difference is as below:

The slow gain of knowledge has been due to X, Y and Z (noun phrases).
The knowledge has been gained slowly because of X, Y and Z (noun phrases).

Thanks! So what follows is not important. It can be used to describe or modify action/verb in the preceding clause? The usage of - Due to and because of - confuses me a lot and reading through material, I am still confused.

Because of and due to both have prepositions at the end (of and to), and hence both should be followed by noun / noun phrases (object of preposition).

Because of is an adverbial modifier, and hence modifies a verb.
Due to is an adjectival modifier, and hence modifies a noun. (due is an adjective.)

Remembering one example may help tackle all issues:
The game stopped BECAUSE OF rain. (Because of modifies verb stopped - rain object preposition)
The stoppage of the game was DUE TO rain. (Due to modifies stoppage - rain object of preposition...as above)

Due to is used only with the verb to be (because it modifies the noun). Because of can be used with any verb.

Hi all,

It seems like we have two different questions getting merged under the same thread :

1)Knowledge of the winter behaviour of emperor penguins has been gained slowly because of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make the Antarctic habitats of the emperors dangerous places for humans in winter.

A. the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make
B. round-the-clock darkness, with frequently sudden blizzards, make
C. round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards make
D. the fact of round-the-clock darkness, with frequent sudden blizzards, making
E. round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards making

I will go with E for this version. "Because of" requires noun,thus the use of "make" is not appropriate.
Option D is out because we have several items that make studying the emperor penguin hard.
Just one question,"making" modifies only the last item of the list or the whole list?
I guess it is for only the last item.Comma is required to modifies the whole list.

2)Knowledge of the winter behaviour of emperor penguins has been gained slowly because of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make the Antarctic habitats of the emperors dangerous places for humans in winter.

A. of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness and frequently sudden blizzards make
B. of high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, with frequently sudden blizzards, make
C. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards make
D. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the fact of round-the-clock darkness, with frequent sudden blizzards, making
E. high winds, temperatures around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, round-the-clock darkness, and frequent sudden blizzards making

Presuming the underlined portion cover "of",I will go with C for this version.Option A and B are out since "because of" require noun.The use of "make" is inappropriate.Option D and E are out since "because" requires clause.