Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth,

[RonPurewal]

...and 'similar to' in C is also nonsense.

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p116479

[MaggieZ131]

I wonder what is wrong with C.
Is it because of the comma before where?

looking forward to your reply.

[RonPurewal]

the last few posts are all about choice C. please read them.

in fact, please read the entire thread (...as you should ALWAYS do, before posting any questions about the problems).
thank you.

[JbhB682]

Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather information about its size and curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers that show with startling directness the large-scale geometry of the universe.

(D) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth gathering information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations

The OA is D.

On the OA,D - wanted to talk about parallelism specifically with regards to "AND"

Going from right to left, it's clear the Y element is "THE curvature of its surface"

Shouldn't the X element also have a "THE"

It seems like the X element is missing a "THE" (I am fully aware that 100 % mirror parallelism is not necessary but the X elements seems to be missing a "THE" or some kind of preposition marker ) or the Y element has an un-necessary "THE"

Thoughts ?

[esledge]

Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, to gather information about its size and curvature of its surface, new observations have been made by astronomers that show with startling directness the large-scale geometry of the universe.

(D) Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth gathering information about its size and the curvature of its surface, astronomers have made new observations

The OA is D.

On the OA,D - wanted to talk about parallelism specifically with regards to "AND"

Going from right to left, it's clear the Y element is "THE curvature of its surface"

Shouldn't the X element also have a "THE"

It seems like the X element is missing a "THE" (I am fully aware that 100 % mirror parallelism is not necessary but the X elements seems to be missing a "THE" or some kind of preposition marker ) or the Y element has an un-necessary "THE"

Thoughts ?

The "the" in the second part is not unnecessary, as "and curvature of its surface" would be unidiomatic (it's incomplete sounding, for lack of a better way to explain).

Would it be more parallel if the first element said "the size of the Earth"? Yes, but as you note, 100% parallelism is not necessary. Also, this phrasing would be both longer and a bit redundant (the "Earth" was just mentioned several words back). Variations around articles (and small pronouns and modifiers) are common reasons you'll see <100% matching in a parallel structure.