Offering a suite of similar products at dissimilar prices is critical

Official Explanation

Creating a filter: we have a comparison in the original sentence, as is signaled by the word "like," so we must examine it. In general, the word "like" most exactly is employed to compare things and their characteristics, while the word "as" compares how things are done. In this sentence, the proper usage is the word "as," because we are not comparing the characteristics of things, but rather the way a suite of similar products is critical in both one industry and others.

Applying the filter: we are left with all answer choices other than (A). All the other answer choices use "as." One difference among them is their treatment of prepositions. Often in Sentence Correction questions, one preposition is required over another not because of general usage rules, but because parallelism in the sentence requires the use of a particular pronoun. In other words, we must not stare at the answer choices and keep repeating "in other industries" and "for other industries" in our mind's ear, wondering which is better in isolation. Rather, the best one is determined by parallelism with the prior part of the sentence. Namely, the product suite is critical for the automotive industry as it is for other industries. Answer choice (E), therefore, is the only valid option. If we were to write this sentence, we might have reasons to use the preposition "in," but without being able to change the non-underlined portion of the sentence, that option is barred to us here.

The correct answer is (E).