Over 75 percent of the energy produced in France derives from nuclear

Hi,

Look at the sentence structure below

 Over 75 percent of the energy produced in France derives from nuclear power,
 whereas nuclear power accounts for just over 33 percent of the energy produced in Germany

The clauses in option C are indeed parallel.

The entities being compared are “energy produced in France” and “energy produced in Germany”.

Observe the verb-ed modifiers “produced in France” and “produced in Germany”.

They appropriately add relevant information to “energy” in both the clauses.

The clauses are essentially comparing relevant entities without any grammatical issues.

The sentence conveys the meaning unambiguously. (Unlike Option D, where the “energy” in the second element is ambiguous).

Therefore there are no parallelism issues in Option C.

However, “the energy” in the underlined portion of Option D refers back to the already mentioned energy in the option i.e. “energy produced in France”. This gives the incorrect meaning that “just over 33% of the energy produced in France comes from nuclear power in Germany.”

This is not the intended meaning of the sentence.

Hence Option D is incorrect.


Hope this helps!

Regards,
Krishna

Just found this post interesting. I will try to reason why D is wrong.

D) whereas just over 33% of the energy comes from nuclear power in Germany

It means that 33% of the energy produced in France comes from the nuclear power in Germany.

E.g I have a car; the car is red in color. "the car" refers to the same car in the previous sentence.

Now apply the same here -
"the" is determiner -> "the energy" about which we had spoken --> We had spoken about "the energy produced in France"

Over 75% of the energy produced in France derives from nuclear power, whereas just over 33% of the energy comes from nuclear power in Germany

Gotcha ! Ohh so just over 33% the energy produced in France comes from nuclear power in Germany. That's crap.
D is OUT Change of Meaning

Hi papillon86,

The reason that you cannot use "it" is because you are not comparing something to itself.

A tip regarding comparisons!

To compare something to itself, use "it" or "they".
Ex. The legs of chair A are more wobbly than they were yesterday.

To compare one thing to another, use "that" or "those".
Ex. The legs of chair A are more wobbly than those of chair B.

Thus, in the problem above, you do not want to compare the amount of energy produced in France to itself. Instead, the sentence seeks to compare the percentage of energy produced by nuclear power in France to the percentage of energy produced by nuclear power in Germany.

Does that help at all?

Best,
Sarai

OA is C
Over 75 percent of the energy produced in France derives from nuclear power,whereas nuclear power accounts for just over 33 percent of the energy produced in Germany

tricky! huh

Sure, let's go over the options one by one.

A) Here 'it' is missing an antecedent, I'm sure you got this. 'It' logically should stand for something like the proportion of energy derived from nuclear power. We can't use the noun/phrase in the preceding clause because that refers to the energy produced in France.

B) This sentence is really bad - there is faulty parallelism ('compared to Germany' is not parallel to anything). Also the sentence says that Germany "uses" something, but France doesn't, again parallelism issues.

C) This option is correct

D) This option is ambiguous. A likely meaning for this sentence the way it's written is that there is energy we don't know where that comes from nuclear power in Germany. All this is telling us is that there's nuclear power in Germany that is used to produce some type of energy. What this sentence refers to by "the energy" could be any energy ANYWHERE. Note that the way this sentence is written doesn't necessarily mean that the energy is in Germany, which is what might be what's confusing you.

E) Again, "it" doesn't have a legitimate antecedent. Also there's another faulty comparison in this option. It's comparing percentage of energy to energy.

Hope this helps a bit.

Can we please discuss some examples involving multiple antecedents for projouns like "it".

Really confusing me now.



Thanks

_____________________
what is wrong in choice D.

Choice D change the meaning of sentence. It means that 33% of the energy which refers to energy produced in France come from nuclear power in Germany. It seems illogical. Choice E is more concise.

The most important key for this problem is focus on the meaning of the sentence. Actually, before this time, I faced this sentence and choose correct one. In this time, I neglect it little bit to go out of track to choose choice D. Fortunately, my second thought lead me to remain on track.. If you stick to the meaning, you will keep on track.

A & E--There is no antecedent for it. "It" would have to be "the amount/proportion of energy derived from nuclear power," and this is never stated.
B--Germany uses just over 33% of what? Also, the use of "compared to Germany" is awkward, since the subject of the sentence is not "France" but "Over 75% of the energy."
D--This isn't ambiguous at all. It is flat-out stating that just over 33% of the energy produced in France comes from nuclear power in Germany. Imagine that we said "65% of the income in my household is from wages, whereas just over 20% of the income is from investments in real estate." Same structure, but you'd never question that the real estate income is part of my household income. The same thing goes for D. "In Germany" is modifying "nuclear power." If we want it to modify "energy" or "energy produced," we need to put it in the right place. " . . . whereas just over 33% of the energy produced in Germany comes from nuclear power."
C--This makes the same fix I just made above, but it swaps the order a bit. Since these are two complete clauses joined by "whereas," we do not need the order to be parallel. Each is a complete thought, and each is grammatically correct. We might not love this sentence, and we might think there is a more elegant way to express the idea, but there is nothing wrong with the grammar or the meaning, and that's more than we can say for the other choices! C is the winner.

Concept Tested: Meaning, Clarity, Comparison
Difficulty level: High
Illustration:
This problem tests subtle differences of meaning and clarity, which appears when illogical things are compared.
In A, the pronoun “it” does not have a logical antecedent (which should be proportion of the energy which is derived
from nuclear power).
In B, a lot of things go wrong. “in France” is compared with “Germany” which is incorrect. Also B is not clear about whether Germany uses
33% of nuclear power of 33% of energy itself.
D is clearly illogical and ambiguous. In D it is very unclear what the term “energy” suggests. It could be energy in
Germany or somewhere else that utilized 33% of German nuclear energy.
E has two errors. First, it compares a proportion of energy in France with energy derived from German nuclear power. E also uses “it” which lacks a logical antecedent.
C is correct.

A) while in Germany it is just over 33%

What is IT referring to ? Seems to be referring to the POWER when it should refer to the production of power..

B) compared to Germany, which uses just over 33%


How can we compare the energy to a nation ?

C) whereas nuclear power accounts for just over 33% of the energy produced in Germany


Although Long , it expresses the sentiments contained in the original passage while removing the grammatical errors which existed in A .. We are referring to the energy produced in Germany and what percentage of that comes from nuclear power... therefore in the absence of an equally correct but shorter or better worded sentence this is correct..

D) whereas just over 33% of the energy comes from nuclear power in Germany


Doesn't make sense , energy comes from nuclear power in Germany , could mean something totally different .. We need to specify for example whether this is the 33% energy produced, consumed, energy exported, energy imported, energy wasted etc etc etc ..

E) compared with the energy from nuclear power in Germany, where it is just over 33%.


Still does not remove the ambiguity ....

Given the choices C is the best suited choice ..

C removes the pronoun ambiguity in the original sentence and maintains the proper comparison between energey produced in France and energy produced in Germany. The comparison is paramount but your first instinct on such a question should be to remove "it" because it is ambiguous. After that B (verb tense) and D (meaning) are incorrect (as stated above).

Hope this helps!
-Ron

This is a tricky one. You need to pay extra attention to MEANING.

We are talking about what PERCENT of energy comes from source X for France, and then the same thing for Germany.

So the beginning of the sentence correctly says "over 75% of energy in France comes from nuclear".

Now look at (D): "33% of the energy comes from [nuclear power in Germany]"

Is this really what we're trying to say?

What we really want to say is "33% of the energy in Germany comes from nuclear power"

Note, this is different from what (D) says. It's close, but the shuffling of the words changes the meaning. They purposely do that to trick you. So structurally it looks like it runs parallel, but MEANING-wise it's not correct. (C) doesn't look parallel, but it matches exactly what we are trying to say.

(A) while in Germany it is just over 33 percent
Here "it" has an ambiguous antecedent (what is just over 33%, energy or nuclear power) . Hence wrong.

(B) compared to Germany, which uses just over 33 percent
compared to Germany is not a valid comparison. It seems that energy is compared to Germany.

(C) whereas nuclear power accounts for just over 33 percent of the energy produced in Germany
This is correct and has a parallel structure.

(D) whereas just over 33 percent of the energy comes from nuclear power in Germany
This changes the meaning. Here it seems that "33 percent of energy" comes from "nuclear power in Germany". In other words, 33% of energy for some place where it will be used comes from the nuclear power in Germany. It has ambiguous meaning

(E) compared with the energy from nuclear power in Germany, where it is just over 33 percent.
This also changes the meaning. This implies a comparison between the 75% of energy in France and energy from nuclear power in Germany. It is also not parallel

Hence C is correct.

Hope it helps

Could you please help me understand structural parallelism in option C which is the correct answer. Though, I agree the option C is the best option as far as meaning is concerned, i am still not sure if both the clauses in option C are parallel.

When you compare unlike elements, you should use "compare to". For e.g. The famous statement by Shakespeare, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Here, a person is compared to a day. For such implied comparisons, you must use "compare to".

While comparing similar elements, you can use either "compare with" (preferred) or "compare to".


--Prasad
EnterMBA.in

Over 75 percent of the energy produced in France derives from nuclear power, while in Germany it is just over 33 percent
A. while in Germany it is just over 33 percent
B. compared to Germany, which uses just over 33 percent
C. whereas nuclear power accounts for just over 33 percent of the energy produced in Germany
D. whereas just over 33 percent of the energy comes from nuclear power in Germany
E. compared with the energy from nuclear power in Germany, where it is just over 33 percent



my doubts are related to Ellipsis.Please clarify.

meaning- The author says that over 75 percent of the total energy produced in France comes from the nuclear power, while only 33 percent of the total energy produced in Germany comes from nuclear power.





A) Incorrect- while in Germany it is just over 33 percent.

1) According to me here IT is ambiguous.

while in Germany ( the energy produced from) it (nuclear power) is just over 33 percent.

while in Germany it(the energy) (produced from nuclear power) is just over 33 percent.

So it can refer to either the energy or nuclear power.



2)According to me there is ambiguity in comparison too.

while in Germany ( the energy produced from) it (nuclear power) is just over 33 percent.
this sentence doesn't convey the intended comparison, it doesn't say that 33 percent of the total energy produced in Germany.

while (the energy produced ) in Germany (from) it (nuclear power) is just over 33 percent.
This is the intended meaning.





Option B) compared to Germany, which uses just over 33 percent.

even this is ambiguous.

if we don't use ellipsis.
The energy produced in France is compared to Germany.(this is incorrect)

with ellipsis.
compared to ( the energy produced from nuclear power in ) Germany,which uses just over 33 percent.

Even this doesn't state the intended meaning but my point is that there are 2 comparisons possible.

DOUBT- is this all correct ?? or have i gone too far with Ellipsis. am i missing something.

And can we use that the comparison is illogical or incorrect because we didnt use ellipsis as i did in option B)

if we don't use ellipsis.
The energy produced in France is compared to Germany.(this is incorrect)