"Due to" is an adjective and correctly refers to "decay". "Because of" is an adverb and should be used to refer to a verb. Eliminate B and E.

Present participle "shielding.." should refer to the previous clause or the subject of the previous clause - incorrect. Eliminate A.

Present participle "saving.." should refer to the previous clause or the subject of the previous clause - incorrect. Moreover "saving" is not parallel with "shielded" and "undetected". Eliminate D.

C is the correct answer. Parallelism between "undetected", "shielded" and "safe" is alright. A past participle used as an adjective can be parallel to another adjective.

Shielding, looks like modify the previous clause.
But it is not a cause and effect, it looks wrong modifying entire thing, .
shileding must refer to melting ice. so option A and B wrong.
so shielded is correct in this usage.
here parallesim shielded from and safe from is correct.
so D wrong.
In between C and E , due to vs because of.
Because of prefered more than due to.
Because of must follow noun or noun phrase. in Option E is correct
.
But if we look meaning wise, due to used for caused by it means, shileded from caused by climatic changing condition.
Even though Option E looks correct grammatically, Option C wins by meaning.

So option C is correct.

Hi,
Although you have been associated with Kaplan and been in this field for some time, and so you should be on the correct lines, i have few observations..
1)Any choice containing ““and safe” is incorrect.... agreed..
2) the pronoun ‘them” is ambiguous without required clarity whether it refers to archeologists or the artifacts. ... agreed 'them ' is ambiguous but them is already used in non underlined portion and 'them' is referring to the same thing on every occasion as the structure of sentence states ... so B cannot be eliminated on this ground..
3) the correct idiom to use will be ‘due to” since the decay is caused by climatic changes and B can be dropped. As per various other institutes and few examples in OG, 'due to' should be preceded by 'to be' verb. so here because of should be correct

shielding ... and saving.. are basically effects of the melting ice fails to keep them undetected
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chetan
Hi
Thank you for your instant response. On the points, which seem to have some disagreement-

1, Admittedly, the pronoun ‘them’ is vulnerable to ambiguity in the underlined portion. Well, that should be sufficient cause to dump it, even though in an another place, the same pronoun may mean definitely the artifacts. The idea on the D-day is to quickly reach the correct choice, rather than getting stuck unduly on some factor; but more importantly, the ambiguity was only an additional point.

Coming to the use of idiom, it is my perception that ‘due to’ is used to modify a noun, ‘the decay’ as in this case and it rightly replaces the idiom “caused by”

IMO, ‘because of’ is used when a verb precedes it and therefore, the idiom modifies the verb. In the context, there is only a decay that is due to or caused by climatic conditions; Let me keep my fingers crossed until the OA is out; In any case, since you seem to have different ideas, may I have privilege of asking you what your call is
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12Sums
This discussion is getting more interesting; In D, you do have ‘ them” but it is not vulnerable to ambiguity, as it is pointless to think that it may refer to saving architects from misappropriation. The question of vulnerability is there in B' only in the first underlined pronoun and not in the second. At least that is what my perception is since I believe, the choice can be dumped more importantly for using a wrong idiom ‘because of’. Have I made myself clear?
But still, why don’t you post your choice also to make the topic more revealing
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Option C. Melting ice fails to keep them undetected..sheilded...and safe... are parallel. Due to changing...is correct as changing climate condition is cause.

Heey, please is the use of '' due to '' appropriate in the sentence (C) ? because, as far as i know, "due to" must follow a form of the verb ''to be '' ..

Glacier and ice patch archaeologists face extreme challenges to find, document, and conserve artifacts when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielding them from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.

A. shielding them from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe

B. shielding them from decay because of changing climatic conditions, and saving them

C. shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe

D. shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and saving them

E. shielded from decay because of changing climatic conditions, and safe

Hi VeritasKarishma generis

Please help with this one

generis

Need your help in option B. A lot of contention between B and C.
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