Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail, the failure rate for businesses in the Amish community hovers around 5 percent.
Option Elimination - This is another good question to understand the deceptions.
. Shraddha also pointed out that from a concept standpoint, the question is not difficult but tries to play with our minds.
. Bottom line - focus on the meaning, and that'll never fail us on GMAT. Now, back to our question.
It's a deception because you see four options with a comparison trigger: "unlike," the cherry on the cake is the noun "the failure rate" in the non-underlined part. So our mind is fixated on the comparison, but then the last option is a U-turn and ditches the comparison, and straightaway gets into another more straightforward concept of subordinating + independent clause construction. But our mind is still fixated on comparison, and while E may look good, we'll still keep looking for something parallel to "the failure rate" or the comparison marker. I recommend using a Data sufficiency mindset here if that helps us. Take each option as independent of the other (GMAT knows we do a vertical scan. While that may be a good strategy for more straightforward questions, a high-quality question such as this one punishes that mindset). When you reach option E, while you can't eliminate "the failure rate" in the non-underlined, at least ditch the baggage of the "unlike" comparison marker. If we can do that, then option E is straightforward.
Option Elimination -
(A) Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail - "American businesses" are not comparable to "the failure rate."
(B) Unlike mainstream American businesses, in which the failure rate is more than half -"American businesses" are not comparable to "the failure rate."
(C) Unlike mainstream American businesses, where more than half of them fail - "American businesses" are not comparable to "the failure rate." "where" is a location marker.
(D) While the rate of mainstream American businesses failing is more than half - prepositions are normally followed by nouns or noun phrases or gerunds. "failing" here is a verbal modifier. Wrong. "rate is more than half" here is not complete. More than half of what?
(E) While more than half of mainstream American businesses fail - First, no "unlike" comparison is required, so stop looking for a noun parallel of "the failure rate." Look for the logical comparison that the subordinate clause introduces by "while" shares very well.