When computer hackers released the “I Love You” virus in 2000, it raced around the world
deleted music files and images, as well as raiding email addresses to multiply it and send itself and other emails onward.
A) deleted music files and images, as well as raiding email addresses
B) deleted music files and images, as well as raided email addresses
C) deleting music files and images, as well as raiding email addresses
D) deleting music files and images, as well as raided email addresses
E) to delete music files and images, as well as to raid email addresses
The use of a comma before ' as well as' is rather dubious. Normally when you cite two factors, setting off by a comma before the prepositional phrase 'as well as' implies that one can dispense with the second factor as non-essential. In this case, if we set off the second factor, then the meaning is totally altered. Yet again, the veracity of the prepositional phrase itself is questionable, since the second factor is in no way inferior or secondary to the first one. The correct conjugation should have been with the co-coordinator 'and' rather than 'as well as'. That aside,
A is a classic a run-on without a conjunction between 'world' and 'deleted'.
B is unparallel, without a comma after 'world'. The use of 'as well as', a prepositional phrase for 'and' is ungrammatical.
C: if 'deleting' is modifying the virus' action of racing around, a comma is needed before deleting. Otherwise, it looks as if the world is doing the deletion.
D. same problem as in C
E looks somewhat okay, even though the use of the infinitive 'to raid' is not a correct diction. Normally a noun is required to follow 'as well as' since it is a preposition.
It is difficult to take OA as C, which stands upon mere structural pseudo parallelism.
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