Experts predict that the increasing levels of air pollution in Beijing

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION


I picked this question because the easiest approach is a process of elimination that includes:
(1) eliminating indisputably incorrect options first;
(2) considering which "gray" issues in an option to focus on; and
(3) comparing answers.

PROCESS OF ELIMINATION

MEANING?
Experts predict that rising levels of pollution in Beijing will make the city unlivable.
(1) How will those rising levels of pollution make the city unlivable and (2) what will be the result?

(1) rising levels of pollution will make the city unlivable because residents will become prone to respiratory illnesses that make breathing even clean air difficult and that cause death

(2) rising levels of pollution will encourage (stimulate) residents to move to other cities

• Split #1: Parallelism
→ Ignore will/would unless you are familiar with the split. Parallelism is easier.

Option (A) is not parallel
Rising levels of air pollution that will make the city unlivable
• would make the residents prone to illnesses
AND
• to encourage them [the residents] to shift [to move] to other cities

Option B is not parallel
Rising levels of air pollution that will make the city unlivable
• making the residents prone to illnesses
AND
• to encourage them [the residents] to shift [to move] to other cities

Eliminate A and B

• Split #2: PRONOUN antecedent error

Option (E) incorrectly uses them and it
-- Them has no antecedent.
Residents are not mentioned.
Experts cannot be the antecedent. Nothing in the sentence suggests that all of the experts who made the prediction live in Beijing (and thus are prone to respiratory illness and stimulated to relocate)
-- IT does not agree with its only logical antecedent, rising levels of air pollution
the noun, levels, is plural. IT is singular.

Eliminate E.

Split #3 • COMPARE C and D, looking for small details

We are down to C and D.

-- and also in option (D) is not always wrong.
Nonetheless, the phrase is wrong often enough that it should trigger inspection.
Does (C) contain and also? NO.

-- introducing examples: like or such as?
This issue is not easily settled.
A couple of official questions use "like" in the non-underlined portion of the question.
[Sidebar. An aspirant has no way to know this fact, but do not rely on prose in CR and RC as an example of GMAC's position on an SC issue.]

"Such as" is correct • "like" may be correct • LIKE is not better than SUCH AS
-- As far as I know, no correct official answer choice has ever used like to introduce examples.
-- The use of such as to introduce examples has never been incorrect.
-- The use of like to introduce examples is not better than such as.
Like may well soon be as acceptable as such as but like will not be better than such as—
unless, of course, GMAC suddenly gets populated by a bunch of Chomsky fanatics, in which case SC will disappear anyway.

Many people believe that GMAC will abandon this preference soon.
Before I saw OG VR 2020, I would have agreed.
I thought that one question would disappear from OG VR 2020.
The question explicitly tests such as and like to introduce examples, although both incorrect options that use like have an additional error.
The question did not disappear from OG VR 2020.

Its official explanation states:
The preferred way to introduce examples is with the phrase "such as," rather than with the word "like," which suggests a comparison.

Spoiler alert: two incorrect answers to an official question are revealed


At this point I would not use such as/like as the only basis upon which to eliminate an answer.
But we are comparing the details in (C) and (D).
(D) uses like to introduce the diseases.
(C) uses such as to do so. Such as is always correct. On this issue, C is better than D.

(D) uses and also and like, both of which are suspect.
(C) uses nothing controversial. It's grammatical. It makes sense. No controversy.

Eliminate (D)

The answer is (C)

Stop reading here if you want only to know the POE for this question.

OTHER ISSUES

• WHICH is used incorrectly in option A.
"Which" cannot refer to the previous clause and in fact does refer to increasing levels of pollution—but "which" can almost never "reach back" that far. Other choices are better.

• Option E is not parallel, either. See the underlined portions of E, above

• WILL/WOULD
I purposely left the WILL/WOULD question out of the POE.

That split is much harder than the others. A native ear probably hears that will is correct.

If the sentence
does not include a conditional (if/then, condition/result) or hypothetical (unreal past, e.g.);
contains predict in present tense; and
includes a will/would split, then "predict" takes "will."

The experts make a statement in the present about the future concerning something real. That setup is a Type 1 conditional:
IF simple present, THEN simple future. (Will is simple future, not would.)

This part is outside the scope of this question, but . . .as a general rule, will is used for predictions, whereas "would" is used for hypotheticals.
If the political climate does not change, the next election will be dominated by mudslinging.
If she had known about the conference, she would have attended.

Hypotheticals include predictions made in the past about the future. The verb predict in past tense requires the verb will to be in past tense, too. Past tense of will is would.

Correct: I predicted that France would win the World Cup in 2018.

GMAT: are WILL and WOULD tested together often?

I mined data. I found two official questions that use predict as the word is used in this sentence.
As I had suspected, in both:
-- the verb is WILL (people predict that X WILL happen)
-- both predict and will are in the non-underlined portions
and
-- would is not an option

The two questions that use predict as this question does are HERE and HERE.

Sample: I looked all the OG 2020 questions again.
Did GMAC often pit will against would?
Answer: no. The verbs are tested separately a fair bit, but not together.

The verbs will and would are tested in the same question on two occasions in OG 2020.
-- In OG 2020 # 762, the main issue tested is the correct verb for reported speech.
-- In OG 2020 # 805, the main issue tested is how to express a conditional (IF/THEN) correctly.
To find those questions, go HERE to find the guide and follow the links until you get to the question.

This question is not a prediction made in the past.

This question is not a hypothetical.

-- The experts do not predict that IF this thing were to happen, then that thing would happen.

TAKEAWAY:
DO YOU SEE THE SIMPLE PRESENT VERB, "PREDICT"? THEN YOU SHOULD USE SIMPLE FUTURE, "WILL."
Right now, experts predict something. By definition, there is only one time period to which the prediction applies: the future.

WILL, the simple future tense, correctly conveys that future.

Almost without exception, when the statement is not a conditional, present indicative predict takes WILL.
(If the statement is a conditional, different rules apply, rules that we do not need to consider.)

(Whew.) I knew that writing the OE for this question would not be easy.

The fabulous discussion, though, forced me to cover bases that I would have left well enough alone.
(Not true. I might have skimmed over the issues, though.)

COMMENTS

bartk and Xylan , you made my day.
Seriously.
This level of exchange, helpfulness, and careful thought is exactly what people on forums should aim for.
As has been the case in every discussion on my threads, you two were careful in your exchange.
Thank you.
I spend a lot of my time undoing urban legends that come from some post or other.

Explanations are good.

So kudos go to Gagan0009 , Xylan , bartk , zhanbo , amitanshumaity , prashanths , Raxit85 , and Annet1524 . Nice work.
Extra kudos go to bartk and Xylan for posts that demonstrate engagement. And generosity. Well done.