532. New theories propose that catastrophic impacts of asteroids and comets may have caused reversals in the Earth’s magnetic field, the onset of ice ages, splitting apart continents 80 million years ago, and great volcanic eruptions.

(A) splitting apart continents
(B) the splitting apart of continents
(C) split apart continents
(D) continents split apart
(E) continents that were split apart

Solution:

OG Solution:
The word splitting must function as a noun to parallel the other items in the noun series of which it is part: reversals, onset, and eruptions. In B, the best choice, the definite article the clearly signifies that splitting is to be taken as a noun. In A, splitting introduces a verb phrase that breaks the parallelism of the noun series. In C, the verb split is similarly disruptive. Choice D, grammatically vague, resembles C if split is a verb and E if split is an adjective. In E, continents illogically replaces the splitting in the series: although the impacts in question may have caused continents to split, they did not cause those continents that were split apart 80 million years ago to materialize.

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