This question provides an excellent example of how knowing different idioms can be helpful but is not entirely necessary. As many others have pointed out on this thread, the idiom “just as...so...” is certainly preferable to “just like...so....” But with
over 20,000 idioms in the English language, it’s impossible to memorize all of them, and it’s hard to know which idioms will be tested and which idioms won’t.
So with that in mind, let’s consider the answer choices and see if we can find better reasons to eliminate the incorrect choices:
Quote:
It will not be possible to implicate melting sea ice in the coastal flooding that many global warming models have projected: just like a glass of water that will not overflow due to melting ice cubes, so melting sea ice does not increase oceanic volume.
(A) like a glass of water that will not overflow due to melting ice cubes,
First, the word “like” on the GMAT always introduces a comparison between two things. In this sentence, the comparison is between a glass of water and melting sea ice. But this comparison is illogical and doesn't fit with the author’s intention. It would make sense to compare a glass of
water to the
ocean or to compare
melting ice cubes to
melting sea ice. But comparing a glass of water to melting sea ice doesn’t really work.
Moreover, the phrase “due to” should modify a noun, but here “due to melting ice cubes” modifies the verb "will not overflow" (telling us
how the glass of water
will not overflow).
For those two reasons, we can get rid of (A).
Quote:
(B) like melting ice cubes that do not cause a glass of water to overflow,
Initially, the comparison seems better in (B): melting ice cubes are compared to melting sea ice.
But when we take a closer look, the underlined portion describes “melting ice cubes
that do not cause a glass of water to overflow.” The “that” makes this part of the comparison essentially a noun (with a modifier). This is problematic because the noun (+ modifier) is then compared to a clause (“melting sea ice does not increase oceanic volume”).
We cannot compare a noun to a clause here, so we can eliminate (B).
Quote:
(C) a glass of water will not overflow because of melting ice cubes,
(C) has neither “like” nor “as” to introduce a comparison. Instead, it proceeds by saying “just a glass of water... so melting sea ice....” The sentence clearly intends to compare two phenomena, and (C) fails to make the comparison. When we read (C) for meaning, without “like” or “as”, it seems to introduce a causal relationship. It reads as if melting sea ice does not increase oceanic volume BECAUSE "just a glass of water will not overflow because of melting ice cubes."
This is illogical and clearly not the author’s intention. Eliminate (C).
Quote:
(D) as melting ice cubes that do not cause a glass of water to overflow,
(D) has the same problem as (B): “Melting ice cubes
that do not cause a glass of water to overflow” are compared with “melting sea ice does not increase oceanic volume.” The comparison is illogical in that it compares a noun (“ice cubes”) to an action (“does not increase”).
Also, the word “as” should introduce a comparison of two actions/clauses, and the underlined portion in (D) does not constitute a clause. Therefore, we can eliminate (D).
Quote:
(E) as melting ice cubes do not cause a glass of water to overflow,
(E) looks promising. It rectifies the comparison issues identified in (B) and (D), and it eliminates the improper use of “due to” as found in (A). It compares the fact that ice cubes “do not cause...to overflow” to the fact that melting sea ice “does not increase volume.” The comparison between two actions is logical, and (E) contains no other definite errors.
So (E) is our winner.