Like Vs As

[ankit.aggarwal.its]

Teachers in this country have generally been trained either to approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles without truly understanding how to apply them.


A) to approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles
B) to approach mathematics like a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles
c) to approach mathematics as a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles
D) that they should approach mathematics as a creative activity or to force students to memorize rules and principles
E) that they should approach mathematics like a creative activity or that they should force students to memorize rules and principles

This problem is from the Manhattan Question Bank. SC#2
I chose option B for this question. My reasoning was that we are comparing two nouns, "mathematics" and "a creative activity". As per Like Vs As rule, As is used to compare two clauses and both clauses should have a subject and verb. Here I don't see any verb in the latter clause.

Please help me understand what I am missing here.

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

nope -- two things wrong with that usage, actually.

--

first, this sentence is not a comparison: you are not drawing some sort of comparison/analogy between "mathematics" and "a creative activity" -- you are actually saying that mathematics IS a creative activity.
this is a different sort of use of "as", in which "as" is just a preposition. like other prepositions, it is not followed by a clause -- it's just followed by a noun (possibly with modifiers attached).

here's another example:
joe spoke to the committee like an expert.
--> this is a comparison: joe spoke in the same manner in which an expert would speak. in this sentence, there is no implication that joe is actually an expert; in fact, the probable implication is that joe is not an expert, but was speaking as though he were.

joe spoke to the committee as an expert.
--> this is not a comparison; this sentence implies that joe is actually an expert on the subject about which he was speaking to the committee.

in this sentence is, you are not saying that mathematics is LIKE a creative activity; you are actually saying that mathematics IS, genuinely, a creative activity. therefore, "like" is inappropriate.

--

second, when "like" is attached to a clause, it always implies a comparison with the subject of the clause.
see here for illustrations:
post36050.html#p36050

that's another problem with using "like" in this sentence -- it would set up an inappropriate nonsense comparison between "teachers" and "a creative activity". in other words, the literal meaning of the sentence using "like" is that teachers are approaching mathematics in the same way that a creative activity would approach mathematics. that, of course, makes no sense.