Researchers at U.C.L.A medical school say the findings suppo

The difficulty in this problem lies in understanding and recognizing the different structures within the sentence. For finding core structures, the slash-and-burn technique is particularly useful. This sentence in its correct form, without all the extra modifiers and garbage, reads: “Researchers say the findings support the idea that some patients have some level of consciousness and the potential to recover”.

In (A) the meaning and structure are incorrect – the findings support one idea: that they have some level of consciousness and the potential to recover. The findings do not support two separate things (emphasized by the word also) that would then seem illogically unrelated to each other. Also, “might have the potential to recover” is redundant – “might” and “have the potential” are nearly synonymous in meaning.

In a careful read of (C) you see that “the consciousness” is being modified illogically by “that have the potential for a recovery.” Also “the potential for a recovery” is an awkward and improper way to say “the potential to recover.”

In (D) the “having” is incorrect as it is not parallel to any other potential structure and this structure does not show that the patients have two things: some level of consciousness and the potential to recover.

(E) lacks the necessary “and” and also uses the awkward structure “potential for a recovery”.

Only (B) creates a simple, logical sentence as shown above without all the confusing modifier structures that make it confusing.

Answer is (B).

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/health/pet-scans-found-to-clarify-vegetative-state.html

Researchers say the findings support the idea that some patients who appear vegetative have some level of consciousness that they cannot show — perhaps low, but real — and the potential to recover.