Like the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth,

[jlucero]

Cobra made a great point about relative pronouns, but the pesky comma in front of the "where" makes this modifier non-essential and, in this case, correct. Consider:

The earth where I live is 70% water. (essential modifier = more than one earth???)

The earth, where I live, is 70% water. (non-essential modifier = ok)

[vinny4nyc]

Hi

I still do not undertand how Like works here..

My understanding was to automatically eliminate Like when comparing nouns.

What should be my takeaway from this official solution?

Cheers

[RonPurewal]

Hi

I still do not undertand how Like works here..

My understanding was to automatically eliminate Like when comparing nouns.

What should be my takeaway from this official solution?

Cheers

well, the key takeaway is that you shouldn't do that!

i'm curious about your rationale here. after all, "like" is a construction whose specific purpose is to compare nouns -- in other words, "like" is tailor-made for situations like the one in this sentence. where did you get the idea that you should eliminate it?

[vinny4nyc]

Sorry My Bad...dunno what i was thinking

I need to take a break :-)

Cheers

[jlucero]

The break is much easier now that you're finished with your test!

[susan_2013]

i still don't understand why C is wrong. Is there sth wrong with the usage of "similar to" here?

[jlucero]

i still don't understand why C is wrong. Is there sth wrong with the usage of "similar to" here?

Yes. Similar does not work in the expression:

Similar to John, Mary enjoys running.
Like John, Mary enjoys running.

Grammatically, this is because similar is an adjective used to describe a noun. Like is a preposition, used to compare nouns.

[mcmebk]

i still don't understand why C is wrong. Is there sth wrong with the usage of "similar to" here?

Yes. Similar does not work in the expression:

Similar to John, Mary enjoys running.
Like John, Mary enjoys running.

Grammatically, this is because similar is an adjective used to describe a noun. Like is a preposition, used to compare nouns.

Hi Joe...I am confused, so are you saying "similar to" is always wrong? It looks correct in your example...I dont understand why it is not acceptable in the question.

Thanks.

[jlucero]

i still don't understand why C is wrong. Is there sth wrong with the usage of "similar to" here?

Yes. Similar does not work in the expression:

Similar to John, Mary enjoys running.
Like John, Mary enjoys running.

Grammatically, this is because similar is an adjective used to describe a noun. Like is a preposition, used to compare nouns.

Hi Joe...I am confused, so are you saying "similar to" is always wrong? It looks correct in your example...I dont understand why it is not acceptable in the question.

Thanks.

There are times when similar to is acceptable. This is not one of those instances. I hate to say that it's idiomatic, but it would be far more valuable to learn that when comparing two nouns, use like instead of similar to (reason: like is a conjunction, similar to is an adjective... but knowing this isn't going to gain you extra points on test day).

[HanzZ]

Hello,

Could someone please shed some light on why choice e is incorrect?

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Hello,

Could someone please shed some light on why choice e is incorrect?

Thanks in advance.

Just as with X..., Y...

Not parallel.

[RonPurewal]

If you're a non-native speaker of English, it's surprising that you would have trouble with choice (e) -- it should be plain that "with" destroys the parallelism.

The appeal of that choice is largely the fact that native English speakers, when talking out loud, often use "with" in this sort of way.

[HanzZ]

Hello,

Could someone please shed some light on why choice e is incorrect?

Thanks in advance.

Just as with X..., Y...

Not parallel.

---
Hello Ron:

Thank you for your reply. I have two further questions if you don't mind.

1. I thought with can be applied to both 'the great navigators' and 'astronomers'. As 'have' can in the following sentence:

1.have made my bed and (have) eaten breakfast.

2.Just as with the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, gathering information about its size and curvature of the surface, astronomers have made new observations

The issue with 'with' aside, is E wrong because 'astronomers' is separated by 'gathering xxx'. The modifier should directly preceed the noun being modified?

Thanks again!

[RonPurewal]

1. I thought with can be applied to both 'the great navigators' and 'astronomers'. As 'have' can in the following sentence:

1.have made my bed and (have) eaten breakfast.

This example is a totally different animal, with no relevance to the problem at hand.

In this example, "have" comes before x AND y, and so can apply to both of them.

If the current sentence had "...with the great navigators ... AND astronomers...", then this point would be valid. But it doesn't, so, no.

This construction -- Just as (complete sentence #1), (complete sentence #2) -- contains two completely different sentences. They're linked by "just as", but they are still two sentences. "With" can't span two different sentences.

[RonPurewal]

2.Just as with the great navigators who first sailed around the Earth, gathering information about its size and curvature of the surface, astronomers have made new observations

The issue with 'with' aside, is E wrong because 'astronomers' is separated by 'gathering xxx'. The modifier should directly preceed the noun being modified?

NB, it's spelled "precede".
"Proceed" and "precede" are English words. "Procede" and "preceed" are not.

--

As for question #2:

First, that's not really what "gathering xxxx" modifies. That's a comma -ing modifier; like others of that kind, it describes the previous action.
I.e., it gives more detail about the navigators' sailing around the earth.

Second, sometimes there are two modifiers that both describe the same thing. Obviously, in those cases it's impossible to place both modifiers directly after the noun. So they are just placed one after the other.
E.g., in OG Diagnostic #50, you have a way of distributing xxxx on the internet that will yyyyy.
If either of the two colored things appeared alone, without the other one, it'd be placed right after "a way". But they're both there, so one comes first and the other one comes second.