Many environmental scientists believe that global warming could lead t

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



THE PROMPT

• issues tested: Noun phrase parallelism and meaning

• Meaning of the sentence?
Scientists believe that global warming could lead to some events:
1) more precipitation / an increase in precipitation
2) more evaporation / an increase in evaporation
3) less soil moisture / a decline in soil moisture
4) more desert land and less rangeland / an expansion of desert lands into current rangelands

• resulting is in every answer option

-- the spread of desert lands into current rangelands is caused by the other three things
-- When you see the word resulting or any variation of the word (resultant, result), you are on notice.
The sentence probably expresses cause and result, and you had better make sure that the option you choose conveys that logic.

• "dedicated nouns" vs. gerunds (verbING)
-- GMAC prefers a "normal" or dedicated noun to a noun made from adding --ING to a verb. (GMAC's preference is in line with good writing.)
-- expansion is a dedicated noun. Increasing is a noun formed by adding --ING to the verb increase.
THE OPTIONS

• as well as makes this option suspect, though as well as is not always wrong.
-- This list, for example, is correct: Good diets consist of protein, fruits and vegetables, and grains, as well as small amounts of healthy fats
-- But if you can see that the first three items cause the fourth, then rule out as well as.
The phrase is not telling us about less important items on a list (that follow as well as)
• resulting increasing is horrible (just a heads up that two ING words are almost never placed back-to-back)
• resulting is okay. It's in every single answer. We can put an adjective ("resulting") in front of a noun in a list of nouns even if the other nouns don't have adjectives.
• The problem is increasing, which is an adjective, not a noun, and thus not parallel with the nouns precipitation, evaporation, and decline
ELIMINATE A


• looks okay
• we have three parallel nouns: increase, decline, and expansion
• as a bonus, option B is more concise than the other options
KEEP

• an increase in is is not parallel to declining
ELIMINATE


• as well as makes this answer suspect
• increasing is not a noun. We do not put an article such as "an" or "the" in front of it. Similar to option A, increasing is not parallel to precipitation, evaporation, and decline
ELIMINATE D

[/quote]
• the nouns are all parallel, but . . .
• therefore and resulting are redundant

The best answer is B

I don't think that the state of ongoing events suggested in option E is easy to dismiss as wrong.
The scientists are predicting; they may well mean continuously increasing precipitation. We don't know.
We do know that redundancy kills option D especially when D is compared to B.

COMMENTS

Codebug4it and sofia2288 , welcome to SC Butler.

These answers range from good to excellent. Kudos to all