“little
polar ice melts during the summer” – implies that actually certain amount of ice melts. There is anyway some melting.
Here, “little” is an adjective and “polar ice” is the noun to which “melts” refers. So, “polar ice” melts.
“
little of the polar ice melts” – almost no ice melts because sun reflects the sunlight. Here, “of the polar ice” is a noun modifier and “little” is a noun to which “melts” refers. So, “little” melts. When we say “I have little to complain about”, we mean “I have almost
nothing to complain about”.
The intended meaning of the sentence requires the latter because it wants to deliver that “the ice reflects much of sunlight, and thus almost NO ice melts during the summer. If it melted, then cities would be flooded”. Let’s bear this in the box on top of our neck and start to analyze the choices.
A. yet the temperatures are
so cold and the ice cap is reflective, so that little polar ice melts during the summer; otherwise, the water levels would rise 245 feet and submerge cities.
1. “temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is reflective” – is an unacceptable parallelism.
2. “so cold… so that” is unidiomatic
3. “little polar ice melts during the summer” implies that actually certain amount of ice melts, not the intended meaning.
4. “otherwise, the water levels would” – to which part of the preceding sentence “otherwise” refers? What could be otherwise? The temperatures are so cold? Little ice melts? Ambiguous.
B. yet the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is so reflective that little of the polar ice melts during the summer; were it to do so, the water levels would rise 245 feet and submerge cities.
Bingo.
1. “the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is so reflective that” is the correct parallelism.
2. “little of the polar ice” is the needed phrase
3. “were it to do so” correctly introduces a hypothetical situation. Ice actually doesn’t melt, but if it melted…
Correct
C. yet the temperatures are so cold and the
ice cap so reflective that
little polar ice melts during the summer, or else the water levels would rise
1. “the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap so reflective” misses “is” after “ice cap”. Otherwise, “are” would be implied in the place of “is”, leading to subject-verb disagreement.
2. “little polar ice melts” implies that actually certain amount of ice melts, not the intended meaning.
3. “or else” cannot deliver a contrast. We need a reverse hypothetical situation.
D. yet the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is reflective, that little of the polar ice melts during the summer,
additionally the water levels would rise
1. “the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is reflective” - is unidiomatic
2. “additionally” is not a conjunction, so D is run-on sentence.
3. no hypothetical situation is introduced. “additionally the water levels would rise” contradicts what the first clause says.
E. yet the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap
reflects so that little of the polar ice melts during the e summer; if it did the water levels would rise
1. “the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap reflects so that” - is unidiomatic
2. “the ice cap reflects” – reflects what? “reflects” misses an object.
Hence
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