First of all, the non-underlined part says: Social scientists in the US have found that people's view of nuclear energy changed dramatically......." Do we need "shifting"? No, it's redundant.The correct structure should be: Social scientists in the US have found that people's view of nuclear energy changed dramatically..., form X to Y. Only D and E remain.

Social scientists in the United States have found that people’s view of nuclear energy changed dramatically following the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979, shifting from optimism and a sense of energy independence to one characterized by fear and distrust.

A) shifting from optimism and a sense of energy independence to one characterized by fear and distrust.
Wrong. "shifting" is redundant.

B) shifting from being characterized by optimism and a sense of energy independence to being clouded by fear and distrust.
Wrong.. Same as A. in addition, always avoid "being" in Gmat.

C) shifting from one characterized by optimism and a sense of energy independence to fear and distrust.
Wrong.. Same as A.

D) from one characterized by optimism and a sense of energy independence to one clouded by fear and distrust.
Correct. Good structure: people's view changed dramatically, for X to Y.

E) from it being characterized by optimism and a sense of energy independence to it being clouded by fear and distrust.
Wrong. "it being" sound awkward.

Hope it helps.

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Nice question raised by Vishu.
So I assume that you have reduced the options to B and D, seeing the parallelism by "by".
Now what hurts the chances for B, given the fact that B is grammatically and logically correct, is that it changes the meaning.
See the "being" is the present continuous form of "to be". It means that the action was still taking place when people's view changed. Moreover "being" also indicates a temporary action.
Whereas D seems to be correct in that it follows the intended meaning. It says when people's view changed , it was already "characterized" by bla bla bla.
Hope that helps.
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Social scientists in the United States have found that people’s view of nuclear energy changed dramatically following the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979, shifting from optimism and a sense of energy independence to one characterized by fear and distrust.

shifting from optimism and a sense of energy independence to one characterized by fear and distrust.
shifting from being characterized by optimism and a sense of energy independence to being clouded by fear and distrust.
shifting from one characterized by optimism and a sense of energy independence to fear and distrust.
from one characterized by optimism and a sense of energy independence to one clouded by fear and distrust.
from it being characterized by optimism and a sense of energy independence to it being clouded by fear and distrust.


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Social scientists in the United States have found that people’s view of nuclear energy changed dramatically following the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979, shifting from optimism and a sense of energy independence to one characterized by fear and distrust.



i have a doubth, what does the ing- modifier (following the three mile island meltdown in 1979) modify? is it modifying a verb(changed )?

It's modifying the entire previous clause and not just the verb.

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Don't be too harsh on being.

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I agree that shifting is a little redundant, but I would not eliminate A solely based on that as you have. There are graver parallelism errors.

I think Marcab is spot on for the being error.

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Thanks souvik101990.
Frankly, sometime I fall in trap just because I eliminate "being" too quickly.
Best.

Here is the official explanation from Veritas

Answer D - While the word “being” can certainly be used properly in a sentence (and you will see it in correct GMAT answers!), it is not correct in this case. A view is “characterized” by something - it is not “being characterized” by something unless you are talking about the act of creating the view over an ongoing period. The goal in the sentence is simply to show how one type of view changed to another.

The word “being” is both unnecessary and incorrect, as this sentence has nothing to do with the act of the view “being” characterized. Answer choices (B) and (E) are thus incorrect.

The sentence also must contain parallel structures that show how the view changed and both (A) and (C) lack that logical, parallel structure. The view did not shift from several emotions to a view characterized by several emotions. It must be either “shifted from a view characterized by x to a view characterized by y” or “shifted from x to y” but it cannot be a mix such as “shifted from x to one characterized by y” Answer choices (A) and (C) both make that error. Also, while not entirely incorrect, the shifting is not required as the fact that the view changed already shows that it must be shifting.

Answer choice (D) correctly shows in a parallel, logical structure that the view changed “from one characterized by x to one characterized by y”. Answer choice (D) is thus correct.

This is a nice question to test how well you can recognize types of SC issues. On your initial read you should spot the "," with the "-ing verb", telling you there is likely a modifier issue. Then you see the "from x to y" and the ever-important little word "and", both indicating that parallelism could be an issue. A quick look at the splits shows that indeed there is something going on with the modifier "shifting". After your first read you have some great places to start looking for eliminations.

When you dig into the "shifting" vs. "for" split, it's tough to make a definitive elimination. Sure, shifting is a bit redundant, but that doesn't feel very solid. It could be a red herring split. You leave with a bias towards D&E but you go in search of other eliminations.

Parallelism is solid on this problem. Remember that parallelism requires both structural and logical parallelism. This problem is dealing heavily with logical parallelism. We need to shift from "one" to "one" or a "feeling" to a "feeling".

For good measure they threw in some nice "being" error choices. I echo the sentiments that we should be careful in our eliminations of the word being - it's not just a blanket elimination. However, it's used incorrectly most often, so don't swing the pendulum too far and get to the point where you don't want to eliminate "being". I thought the explanation provided in this thread about the meaning of "being" was pretty solid.

If you are seeing these categorical issues (Modifiers, Parallelism, etc.), you are well on your way to SC success. If not, take some time to focus in on the error types that appear in each problem...

KW
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I narrowed the choices down to B and D, but ended up choosing B because I assumed that subordinate clauses must begin with a participle not a preposition. In the case that a preposition is used, shouldn't the comma be removed?

Answer D is correct because we have everything right

- Idiom : From X to Y

- Parallelism :from one characterized by optimism... to one clouded by fear

Cheers,

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