abhishek31 wrote:
Hi, I wanted to understand is the usage of both "with states opening" in option A and "as states open" in option E correct?
As daagh noted, we don't have to worry about the construction in (A) because it doesn't make any sense for a merger to consist of a single entity.
For whatever it's worth, I think you can argue that "with states" is, at best, confusing. At first, it sounds as though the the author is referring to a "question with states" or a "network...with states," neither one of which is logical. If you read it a few times, you can probably figure out what the author intended to convey, but we had to filter out some illogical interpretations to do so.
In (E), we have "the merger of the nation's leading gas company and leading electric company is intended to create a huge network for marketing the utilities in question as states open their utility markets.." "As" indicates that one action ("the merger
is intended") is happening at the same time as another action ("states
open their utility markets..."). This is crystal clear, and there's no other plausible way to interpret the sentence.
If you have to re-read one answer choice several times to understand it, but the other answer choice is clear and logical, the clear and logical one will be the winner. So (E) is still better, even if we ignore the other major problem in (A). (And we wouldn't!)
I hope that helps!
Could you also explain if there is any difference in A vs E between "a huge marketing network for utilities" and "a huge network for marketing" ? I eliminated eliminated A cause the latter made more sense, but not sure if its the right way to look at it.