Whereas lines of competition are clearly defined in the more establish

Hi ss18,

I would be happy to help you.


In this official sentence, we do see the structure whereas X, Y in which X and Y are parallel because both X and Y are a clause.

X = lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries,
Y = in the Internet industry they are blurred and indistinct,...

(Subjects = blue, Verbs = Green)


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Whereas lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries, in the Internet industry they are blurred and indistinct, as companies that compete one day may be partners the next.

A. Whereas lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries, in the Internet industry they are blurred and indistinct, as companies that compete
B. Although the lines of competition are clearly defined in industries that are more established, they are blurred and indistinct in the Internet industry, as competing companies
C. The lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries, unlike the Internet where they are blurred and indistinct, as companies that compete
D. Unlike more established industries, where the lines of competition are clearly defined, they are burred and indistinct in the Internet industry, as companies that compete
E. Unlike more established industries, with clearly defined lines of competition, those of the Internet industry are blurred and indistinct, as competing companies

Could you please explain why option a is better than option b(in what respect)?

Pay attention to the non-underlined phrase one day, phrase one day can not modify the noun companies --> option B is wrong; instead, phrase one day should modify the verb compete --> option A is correct.

PS: To modify a noun like companies in B, we should you an adjective or another noun. phrase one day here is an adverb.

Does all this make sense?

Whereas lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries, in the Internet industry they are blurred and indistinct, as companies that compete one day may be partners the next.

The clear understanding of the sentence will eliminate all the wrong choice

Meaning
The competition of the established industries are more defined and structure but in the Internet industry, the competition is very blurred and indistinct to such an extent that the rivals companies become friends quite often.

Here competition lines (behavior) of the established industries and competition lines (behavior)of the internet industries are compared

POE
A. Whereas lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries, in the Internet industry they are blurred and indistinct, as companies that compete
The meaning is intact and the comparing entities are apt.
B. Although the lines of competition are clearly defined in industries that are more established, they are blurred and indistinct in the Internet industry, as competing companies
Meaning ambiguity: Here as competing companies the second sentence presents as evidence for the blurred and indistinct competition lines of the internet industry. This is not the intended meaning
C. The lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries, unlike the Internet where they are blurred and indistinct, as companies that compete
The comparing entities are wrong
The lines of competition and Internet

D. Unlike more established industries, where the lines of competition are clearly defined, they are burred and indistinct in the Internet industry, as companies that compete
The comparing entities are wrong.
more established industries and the lines of competition

E. Unlike more established industries, with clearly defined oflines of competition, those of the Internet industry are blurred and indistinct, as competing companies
The comparing entities are wrong
more established industries and lines of competition

in chapter 6 of manhattan book, it is mentioned that Do not use comparative adjectives unless you have THAN in the sentence. "With winter coming, I will have higher energy bills" -wrong but in Option A we does not have THAN. is it assumed defined in the more established industries [than] in the internet industry.

Your understanding is in the right direction, but not exactly on the target - here "more established industries" refer to the industries that are more established than the Internet industry (not that "..more clearly defined in certain other industries than in Internet industry" - the use of "in" before "the internet industry" in your post is wrong.)

Also this example shows that a comparative adjective can used even without "than" when the comparison is implied.

Whereas lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries, in the Internet industry they are blurred and indistinct, as companies that compete one day may be partners the next.

A. Whereas lines of competition are clearly defined in the more established industries, in the Internet industry they are blurred and indistinct, as companies that compete
B. Although the lines of competition are clearly defined in industries that are more established, they are blurred and indistinct in the Internet industry, as competing companies

First of, I was about to select B but ended up marking A.
B looked good because of proper parallelism, Although X blah blah, Y (pronoun for X of something else). But then felt something off about the 'Although' and 'competing companies'.

This is contrast between something of different type of companies. We are making a clear statement of some phenomenon about these companies. Whereas seems to be somewhat better. With Although, it feels like some sort of stronger contrast exists.

Although he is good, he seems to be cruel. Seems better.
Whereas he is good, he seems to be cruel.

Any inputs on this? Is the usage of Although correct in B or not. If not, why exactly? Any clear different between Although and Whereas?

"as companies that compete one day may be partners the next" seemed wholesome.
"as competing companies one day may be partners the next" seemed awkward, as if something is missing.

The first time I saw this question, I treated "although" and "whereas" as being more or less interchangeable - they both set up the expectation of contrasting clauses. If you see this split on test day, I'd strongly encourage you to look for other decision points.

So here's another thought. In (A) we had "as companies that compete one day may be partners the next." The terms in red, "one day" and "the next" are serving as modifiers indicating the time period when an action took place. The terms in blue "compete" and "be" are the relevant actions. Looks good to me.

But contrast that with (B): "as competing companies one day may be partners the next." Now we no longer have two actions, just an adjective, "competing" and a verb "be," creating an illogical comparison in which nothing is happening in the first time period.

But for what it's worth, I suspect you're right that "although" and "whereas" aren't identical, and your example illustrates this subtlety. "Whereas he is good, he seems to be cruel," seems wrong to me, and I suspect it's because the subject is identical in both clauses. "Whereas" is a better fit when two different subjects are compared. "Whereas he is good, she is cruel." The probability that the GMAT will ever require you to be able to make this distinction is roughly 0.

I hope this helps!

In the OA, the lines of competition and the Internet Industry are compared. I went with B as the comparison seemed perfect. please

Neither choice (A) nor choice (B) is ideal.

In (A), the use of the pronoun "they" to refer to "lines of competition" is somehow a little off, as, ideally, "they" would refer to a specific set of lines of competition, but, in this case, "they" refers to lines of competition in general in the Internet industry without that reference's being made clear.

An analogous sentence is, "Whereas people speak Chinese in China, in the United States they speak English." What people does "they" refer to exactly?

In (B), "they" seems to refer to "the lines of competition," but "the lines of competition" mentioned are those in the more established industries, not in the Internet industry. So, in a sense, (B) conveys that "the lines of competition ... in the industries that are more established" are in the Internet industry.

Now, regarding the fact that the comparison in (A) does not line up perfectly, in (A), the use of "whereas" rather than, for instance,"unlike," indicates that we are dealing, not with a strict comparison, but with two contrasting clauses. So, the comparison does not have to line up perfectly. The two clauses have merely to present a contrast.

The comparison in (B) does seem to line up a little better than does the comparison in (A), but probably was written to sound better than (A) in order to tempt people who don't notice the key difference between the two choices.

The key difference between the two choices and the clearest reason to select (A) over (B) is that the connection between choice (B) and the non-underlined portion of the sentence is flawed, whereas choice (A) works with the non-underlined portion of the sentence, as has been discussed in previous posts.

Can we compare "lines of competition" with "internet industry"?. I went for (B)

Notice that the correct choice (A) does NOT compare "lines of competition" to "the internet industry". The comparison in choice (A) is between two clauses: (1) "lines of competition are clearly defined in [x]" and (2) "[lines of competition] are blurred and indistinct in [y]".

Choice (A) compares the way "lines of competition" ARE in one sector ("the more established industries") to the way "lines of competition" ARE in another sector ("the internet industry"). This comparison is perfectly logical.

I hope that helps!

Why is whereas used in the starting of the clause and why is the option with unlike wrong?

Hi Vineet, whereas in fact almost always compares/contrasts two clauses.

Like/unlike should ideally compare two similar entities. That's not happening in options D and E.

D) Unlike more established industries,......, they (lines of competition) are burred and indistinct..
- Notice that this option is comparing more established industries and lines of competition - Not similar entities

E) Unlike more established industries,......, those (lines of competition) of the Internet industry..
- Notice that this option is again comparing more established industries and lines of competition - Not similar entities

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses usage of "like/unlike", its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

EducationAisle could you explain why (B) is incorrect? I don't see any grammatical or logical error

Indeed Hoozan; quite tricky. Bit of a parallelism issue in B.

Notice A compares "more established industries" and "Internet industry"; B on the other hand compares "industries that are more established" and "Internet industry".