Hello Everyone!
Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow down our options quickly so we know how to answer questions like this when they pop up on the GMAT! To begin, let's take a quick look at the question and highlight any major differences between the options in
orange:
During an ice age, the buildup of ice at the poles and the drop in water levels near the equator speed up the Earth’s rotation,
like a spinning figure skater whose speed increases when her arms are drawn in.(A)
like a spinning figure skater
whose speed increases when
her arms are drawn in(B)
like the
increased speed of a figure skater when
her arms are drawn in(C)
like a figure skater
who increases speed while spinning with
her arms drawn in(D)
just as a spinning figure skater
who increases speed by
drawing in her arms(E)
just as a spinning figure skater
increases speed by
drawing in her armsAfter a quick glance over the options, there are a few things we can focus on to narrow down our choices:
1. like / as
2. whose speed increases / increased speed / who increases speed / increases speed
3. her arms are drawn in / her arms drawn in / drawing in her armsSince #1 is an "either/or" split, let's start there. No matter which one we choose, we'll eliminate either 2 or 3 options rather quickly. There is a difference between how you use like vs. as:
Like = used as a
prepositionAs = used as a
subordinating conjunctionSince we're looking for a word that joins two clauses together, we need to use a subordinating conjunction. Let's see how our options stack up:
(A)
like a spinning figure skater whose speed increases when her arms are drawn in
(B)
like the increased speed of a figure skater when her arms are drawn in
(C)
like a figure skater who increases speed while spinning with her arms drawn in
(D) just
as a spinning figure skater who increases speed by drawing in her arms
(E) just
as a spinning figure skater increases speed by drawing in her arms
There you go - you can eliminate options A, B, & C because they use the preposition "like" instead of the conjunction "as" to join two clauses.
Now that we're only down to 2 options, let's see what differences we can find and explore those:
(D) just as a spinning figure skater who increases speed by drawing in her armsThis option is
INCORRECT because the clause after "as" MUST be an independent clause - and this one is missing a verb!
(E) just as a spinning figure skater increases speed by drawing in her armsThis option is
CORRECT because the clause after "as" is an independent clause, which is what we need when using conjunctions!
There you have it - option E is the correct choice! By focusing first on the "either/or" split, we eliminated several options that would have made this question much harder to solve quickly!
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