Interestingly, a ripe yellow banana appears to glow blue under

Question

Interestingly, a ripe yellow banana appears to glow blue under ultraviolet light,  which is likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs  in the peel as the fruit ripens.

A. which is likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs
B. a phenomenon likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs
C. because of the chlorophyll breakdown
D. which is likely due to chlorophyll breakdown occurring
E. a phenomenon that is likely because of the chlorophyll breakdown occurs

I request someone to throe light on the usage of  due to  here in option. According to theory,  Due to  only refers to nouns and not actions.

prakashgmat2016 · Accepted Answer

Interestingly, a ripe yellow banana appears to glow blue under ultraviolet light, which is likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs in the peel as the fruit ripens.

A. which is likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs
B. a phenomenon likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs
C. because of the chlorophyll breakdown
D. which is likely due to chlorophyll breakdown occurring
E. a phenomenon that is likely because of the chlorophyll breakdown occurs

This question should be solved in 20 seconds in the EXAM. B and E have appositive modifiers and hence a preferred construction. Answer has to be between B and E.
E is wrong because of the wrong usage of BECAUSE OF. Hence mark B and move ahead

Now detailed explanation

a: COMMA + WHICH wrongly modifying UV light. Hence WRONG. Also, usage of DUE TO is wrong here. HOW TO CHECK THIS - If you can replace DUE TO with CAUSED BY and the sentence still make sense then usage of DUE TO is correct. Try to replace DUE TO here with CAUSED BY. Sentence would be non nonsensical. D is not correct for the same reason

b. CORRECT. Lets hold it for now

c. Slight change in the meaning as LIKELY is removed. The original sentence and all other option have LIKELY which is a possibility but C makes it CERTAIN. Hence wrong

d. SAME AS A

E We can not have a clause after BECAUSE OF. We must have a Noun after Because OF. Please remember that a clause can follow BECAUSE and a Noun can follow BECAUSE OF.
RULE: 'Because of X' is an incorrect idiom when X is a clause. E.g. : Retailers reported moderate gains in their November sales, as much because of their sales of a year earlier being so bad as that shoppers were getting a head start on buying their holiday gifts.

Because:

By itself, the word “because” is a subordinate conjunction. What does that mean? It means that this word introduces a subordinate clause. A subordinate clause, like any clause, must have a complete [noun] + [verb] structure within it

Because of:

The words “because of” are a compound preposition. Prepositions are designed to be followed by only a noun —- “because of the rain“, “because of the parade“, “because of the child’s temper tantrum“, etc. The object of this or any preposition can be a gerund or gerund phrase —- “because of waiting for the senator“, “because of limited parking“,

Hope it helps :-)

Senthil1981 · Answer

Interestingly, a ripe yellow banana appears to glow blue under ultraviolet light,  which is likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs  in the peel as the fruit ripens.

A. which is likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs -  Which refers to ultraviolet light - not correct 
B. a phenomenon likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs -  Correct 
C. because of the chlorophyll breakdown -  Changes meaning of the sentence - not correct 
D. which is likely due to chlorophyll breakdown occurring - Which refers to ultraviolet light - not correct 
E. a phenomenon that is likely because of the chlorophyll breakdown occurs -  Where does the breakdown occurs ? it should be that occurs - not correct

daagh · Answer

IMO: I feel C would be a better choice.
‘Due to’ is classified as adjectival while ‘because of’ is termed as adverbial. This means that ‘due to’ has to modify a noun such as “appearance of the yellow banana”… This is not what we have in the topic. 
On the contrary, “because of” modifies a verb such as “appears to glow blue”, which is what we have in the stimulus.

Secondly, in B, the appositive modifier – a phenomenon- is supposed to stand for another noun appearing prior to that. Here the only noun that is available is the yellow banana and we can’t call yellow banana a phenomenon. 
However, my stronger intuition is that GMAT may like to stay clear of such controversies where scholarship is deeply divided, unless somebody says that this is an official question. Of course, we can reject A and D for their foul of the touch rule of ‘which’ and we can dump E for the ungrammatical follow up of a clause after the compound preposition ‘because of’.

abhimahna · Answer

Sir, don't you think here a phenomenon refers to the glowing blue under UV radiations?

Also, I believe due to is correctly used with "chlorophyll breakdown" here.

As far as C is concerned,

Interestingly, a ripe yellow banana appears to glow blue under ultraviolet light, because of the chlorophyll breakdown occurs in the peel as the fruit ripens.

This sentence seems awkward to me. Also, there seems some issue with the dependent and independent clauses here.

Please help me understand if I am missing anything.

daagh · Answer

Abhi
Does C have the verb "occurs' ; As far as I see, the verb occurs is not part of choice C. So what follows in the second part is not a clause but a phrase,So the issue about dependent and independent clause is not there in C. 
In effect C is :Interestingly, a ripe yellow banana appears to glow blue under ultraviolet light, because of the chlorophyll breakdown in the peel as the fruit ripens. 
This is a simple sentence with a modifier attached to it and not a complex sentence as you may have perhaps thought. But how you set aside C aside the awkwardness?

For the 'phenomenon' standing for the process of glowing blue under UV light, I felt that a singular noun should refer to another noun rather than a process. However, your stand would not be wrong either.

Only thing is that ‘due to’ is mostly preceded by a form of the verb ‘to be’, which is absent in B. I would feel, ‘a phenomenon that is likely due to the chlorophyll breakdown that occurs’ would have been more grammatical

sleepynut · Answer

Hi,
I prefer B to C because C somehow gives the sense of certainty by obviating "likely".
Additionally,appositive modifier could modify either the specific noun or the entire clause;hence,it is correct as is.

Please correct me if I misunderstand something

anje29 · Answer

Difference between due to vs because of is well discussed here https://e-gmat.com/blogs/due-to-vs-because-of/

NikMan · Answer

Hi,
I read that "Due to" and "because of" both will ALWAYS be followed by noun because "to" and "of" are prepositions, and objects of prepositions will ALWAYS be noun.

Could the reason for C being an incorrect answer choice be that C says "because of the chlorophyll breakdown in the peel as the fruit ripens"? Since breakdown, here can be perceived as a verb, making because of followed by a clause, thus, incorrect.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

GMATin · Answer

Options A & D are out because they violate the touch rule of 'which' modifier. Which cannot be used to modify anything apart from nouns. Additionally, which must be placed close to the noun it is modifying with the exception of noun+prepositional phrase (as long as the prepositional phrase cannot be logically placed anywhere else.

Option C uses 'because of' incorrectly to modify noun (chlorophyll breakdown) . However, the use of comma before 'because' is incorrect. Hence, this option is eliminated.

Option B & E correctly use noun+noun modifier. However, option E is incorrect on two counts.

1) usage of because of. Once again, because of is being used to modify the noun (chlorophyll breakdown). If the option was edited to: "a phenomenon that is likely because of the breaking down of chlorophyll", usage of because of would have been correct.

2) Lack of the word 'that' after chlorophyll breakdown does not correctly join the subjunctive clause "occurs in the peel as the fruit ripens" with the former clause.

Thus, correct option is B

VerbalBot · Answer

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Interestingly, a ripe yellow banana appears to glow blue under

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