Quote:
(A) remaining this way whether or not
For starters, the parallelism doesn’t make any sense. The parallelism trigger “and” is followed by “remaining”, and there’s no “-ing” modifier that could possibly be parallel to “remaining.”
Also, “whether or not” is apparently considered redundant on the GMAT. “Whether” is enough, and the “or not” is just a waste of words.
For whatever it’s worth, I’m also not crazy about the phrase “in this way.” But I’ll say more about that at the end of the explanation.
In any case, the parallelism alone is enough to eliminate (A).
Quote:
(B) remaining like that even as
(B) has the same parallelism problem as (A). See above for more on that issue.
Plus, the phrase “like that” is a little bit suspect here. I think “that” is trying to act as a singular pronoun (more on “that” in
this article and in
this video), and it presumably refers to “diamond.” So we have: “graphite… (remains) like a diamond even as the heat and pressure are removed.” Nope, the graphite IS a diamond – it’s not “like a diamond” or “like diamond.”
So (B) is gone.
Quote:
(C) remaining as such whether or not
(C) has the same two problems as (A): the parallelism is wrong, and “whether or not” isn’t really the GMAT’s favorite phrase. See the explanation for (A) for more on these issues.
I’m not sure that the phrase “as such” is completely wrong, for whatever it’s worth. I think it’s awkward and clunky and a little bit antiquated, but I wouldn’t eliminate (C) based solely on that phrase. Fortunately, we have plenty of completely concrete reasons to get rid of (C).
And now things get nasty.
Quote:
(D) remains in this way although
(E) remains thus even when
The parallelism is fine now! We have “graphite…
changes into… diamond and
remains…” That’s cool.
So what’s the difference between (D) and (E)? There are only two things, and both are pretty subtle.
First, “in this way” in (D) is pretty goofy. I guess the phrase “this way” is trying to refer to the fact that the substance is now a diamond? I can’t be certain that it’s WRONG, but it’s awfully weird to say “graphite remains in this way” when we’re trying to say “graphite remains a diamond.” How is being a diamond “a way”? That doesn’t make much sense. In (E), “thus” sounds pretentious, but it can reasonably refer back to “as a diamond.”
The other problem is a little bit clearer. The underlined portion in (D) ends with “although”, which basically means “despite the fact that” – so (D) is saying that the substance remains a diamond “
despite the fact that the heat and pressure are removed.” (E) says that the substance remains a diamond “
even when the heat and pressure are removed.”
That might seem like a really tiny difference, but (E) makes more sense. The point is that the substance remains a diamond even after the heat and pressure are removed – after all, you wouldn’t wear a hot, pressurized diamond in a ring, right? There’s no reason to emphasize the idea that it remains a diamond
despite being removed from the heat.
So it’s probably a little bit unsatisfying, but (E) is our answer.