Glacier and ice patch archaeologists face extreme challenges to find,

Hi warrior1991 - sorry for the slight delay.

Bottom line: The contest between option B and option C is not even close.
Option C wins.

People who are objecting to DUE TO are using a rule that does not exist.

Option B is a disaster.

Would you like to know what I really think?

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Let's strip this sentence just a little and diagram it.

Glacier and ice patch archaeologists face extreme challenges to find, document, and conserve artifacts when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielding them from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.

• Original, slightly stripped:
Archaeologists face challenges to find, document, and conserve artifacts when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielding[?] them from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe [?] from misappropriation.

Archaeologists face challenges
-- to find,
-- [to] document, and
-- [to] conserve artifacts
WHEN melting ice fails to keep [artifacts]
-- undetected
-- shielding? them? from decay, and
-- safe from misappropriation

• Option B in the sentence

(B) Archaeologists face challenges to find, document, and conserve artifacts when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielding them from decay because of changing climatic conditions, and saving them from misappropriation.

(B) Archaeologists face challenges
-- to find,
-- [to] document, and
-- [to] conserve artifacts
WHEN melting ice fails to keep [artifacts]
-- undetected
-- shielding? them from decay because of [?] changing climatic conditions, and
-- saving them from misappropriation

• Parallelism

How could (B) possibly be parallel?
-- undetected is in the non-underlined portion of the prompt.
-- undetected and shielding are not parallel
-- undetected and saving are not parallel

It's not impossible for a sentence to contain both past and present participles, but if another option offers a past participle and a inoffensive adjective, why on earth would we choose this option B with TWO present participles? [quite aside from participial modifier errors and the incorrect "because of" ]

• modifier error

(B) has some weird stuff going on.
-- comma + present participle (verbING) modifies the preceding clause (or its subject, or the immediately preceding noun, although the last case is very rare)

-- in what way, at all, does shielding modify WHEN melting ice fails to keep [artifacts] undetected
Is shielding a contemporaneous event?
Ridiculous. The melting ice that is failing to cover the artifacts cannot also be shielding the artifacts.

Is shielding a result of when melting ice fails to keep artifacts undetected?
Ridiculous. Melting ice cannot both fail to keep artifacts covered and result in the shielding of those artifacts.
The artifacts are shielded because they are detectable? No. All kinds of wrong.

Does shielding modify the verb phrase "fail to keep?" Or the verb "fail"?
Does "shielding" tell us in what way the melting ice fails to keep the artifacts undetected?
(No. Artifacts that are shielded have no logical relation to artifacts that are now detectable.)
Is shielding connected to fail or fail to keep in any logical way? No.
The word shielding is the opposite of the verb to fail to keep [undetected].

How about saving? Saving cannot sensibly modify the clause WHEN melting ice fails to keep [artifacts] undetected.

WHEN melting ice fails to keep artifacts undetected, then the artifacts are VISIBLE
So . . . saving them from expropriation (being stolen) somehow fits with the fact that melting ice makes the artifacts visible?
Because the artifacts are visible, they are safe from being stolen?

Both shielding and saving are nonsensical.

Compare B, for example, to tthis official question, here (tropical bats), SPOILER ALERT

• BECAUSE OF and DUE TO? Stand by

• Option C is parallel and sensible

(C) Archaeologists face challenges to find, document, and conserve artifacts when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.

(C) Archaeologists face challenges
-- to find,
-- [to] document, and
-- [to] conserve artifacts
WHEN melting ice fails to keep [artifacts]
-- undetected
-- shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and
-- safe from misappropriation

Melting ice fails to keep artifacts:
(1) undetected;
(2) shielded from decay [that is CAUSED BY and due to climatic changes], and
(3) safe from expropriation.

All three of those adjectives are logical.
Modifiers? Undetected, shielded, and safe all refer to THEM, which in turn refers to artifacts. The modifiers are fine.

• DUE TO and BECAUSE OF

• because of is an adverb that should modify a verb. I don't see any verb that "because of" could be modifying.
-- we have plenty to eliminate B if we are not sure about because of.
Option B is neither parallel nor logical. Its participial modifiers, shielding and saving, are nonsensical.

One last issue: is DUE TO correct in option C? Yes.

There is no such rule as "due to must be preceded by a TO BE or linking verb."

Due to is an adjective. "Due to" is a weird adjective, I grant you that much. It's idiomatic.
But it's an adjective. It modifies a noun.
I can use DUE TO in two ways.

(1) I can put due to right next to the noun that it modifies, this way:
Inner city deterioration due to political and social neglect is appalling in a country this wealthy.
What caused the deterioration? Political and social neglect.

(2) I can place "due to" after a TO BE verb. (This construction is much more common but certainly not the only construction!)
Your good grades are due to your hard work.
(What caused your good grades? Your hard work.)

Substitute any one of the following three phrases in the sentence that contains DUE TO.
Does the sentence make sense? If so, then due to is correct.

• caused by
• resulting from
• attributable to

• Answer C is superior to answer B with respect to parallelism and modifiers: check DUE TO

Archaeologists face challenges to ... conserve artifacts
when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.

. . . when melting ice fails to keep them . . . shielded from decay ATTRIBUTABLE TO changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.
. . . when melting ice fails to keep them . . . shielded from decay CAUSED BY changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.
. . . when melting ice fails to keep them . . . shielded from decay RESULTING FROM changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.

This is my first case scenario, the rarer of the two, in which DUE TO is placed right next to the noun it refers to.
Is decay attributable to, caused by, and resulting from changing climatic conditions? YEP.

DUE TO in this sentence has nothing to do with the previous clause and does not need a TO BE verb.

This contest between B and C is not even a close call.

C wins.

( warrior1991 , I really hope that this analysis helps, because this thread is kinda all over the place. Whew. )
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Could not have asked for a better explanation. Had there been a liberty to award as many kudos,I would have showered a lot on this post. :> :>

Thank you yet again.

Glacier and ice patch archaeologists face extreme challenges to find, document, and conserve artifacts when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielding them from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.


A. shielding them from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe

B. shielding them from decay because of changing climatic conditions, and saving them

C. shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe

D. shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and saving them

E. shielded from decay because of changing climatic conditions, and safe

There are two main splits in the question
- due to v/s because of - Due to is more correct as can be checked by caused by so we can come down to A,C and D through this split and then as per parallelism, choose A.

- Shielding vs shielded - if we ignore due to vs because of then we would have B and C as contenders taking parallelism into account.

Now, in B, we have

when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielding them from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation. - This sentence as per the modifier meaning would mean that ice fails to keep them undetected. How? By shielding them from decay..... and safe from misappropriation. Now, clearly, this is not how melting ice fails to keep the artifacts undetected. So, there is a meaning error in B.

Now, in C, we have

melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.

Here, the words shielded and safe are in parallel structure with undetected and therefore can use "fails to keep them" along with shielded and Safe. Now, this gives the correct meaning and therefore is more appropriate choice.

other definitive error is of course due to v/s because.

Is the usage of the more frequently correct in this scenario?
Person A :This event never takes place
Person B:this event takes place more frequently / more often than you think.
Can we use comparatives like more frequently / more often to compare something with '0'(event never takes place) .I know that pragmatics generally govern these types of usages but will this type of usage of more frequently/more often correct in this scenario ?

Glacier and ice patch archaeologists face extreme challenges to find, document, and conserve artifacts when melting ice fails to keep them undetected, shielding them from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe from misappropriation.

B. shielding them from decay because of changing climatic conditions, and saving them

C. shielded from decay due to changing climatic conditions, and safe

generis , souvik101990
My question is: Whether it is possible that V+Ing modifier may modify main clause(IC-"Glacier and ice patch archaeologists face extreme challenges to find, document, and conserve artifacts") instead of modifying near by clause(DC-"when melting ice fails to keep them undetected,")
I am convinced with explanation that option C is correct, I am just clarifying my query regarding possibility of V+ing modifier.
Hope, I have explained my question clearly.
EducationAisle AndrewN Need your help plz.

Why they wrote document between 2 commas?

Posted from my mobile device

There are 3 items in first list:
Find artifacts,
Document artifacts,
Conserve artifacts.
Document here is to record.

Hello, GUARAV1113. The short answer is yes, the -ing modifier can reach back to modify the main clause. The dependent when clause simply gives us a time marker, but it should be placed exactly where it is to avoid muddling the picture concerning them. In other words, placed anywhere else, the when clause will seem to refer to archaeologists more than artifacts. (As written, the sentence does not seem to indicate that melting ice fails to keep archaeologists undetected, and it should remain that way.)

Thank you for thinking to ask me about this one. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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Bunuel - The correct ans is one with because of in E-GMAT. Wrong answer for this solution.