Question

The discovery that Earth's inner core rotates independently of and more quickly than Earth's outer layers is responsible for advancing studies of the flow of heat from the inner through the outer planet and of the formation and periodic reversal in direction of Earth's magnetic field.
A. core rotates independently of and more quickly than Earth's outer layers is responsible for advancing studies of the flow of heat from the inner through the outer planet and of the formation and periodic reversal in direction of Earth's magnetic field
B. core rotates independently of and more quickly than Earth's outer layers is responsible for advancing studies of how heat from the inner core flows through the outer planet, and the formation and periodic reversal in direction of Earth's magnetic field
C. core rotates independently and more quickly than Earth's outer layers are responsible for advancing studies of how heat from the inner core flows through the outer planet, and how Earth's magnetic field forms and the periodic reversal of its direction
D. core, rotating independently and more quickly than Earth's outer layers, are responsible for advancing studies of the flow of heat from the inner through the outer planet, and the formation and periodic reversal in direction of Earth's magnetic field
E. core, rotating independently of and more quickly than Earth's outer layers, is responsible for advancing studies of the flow of heat from the inner through the outer planet and of how Earth's magnetic field forms and the periodic reversal of its direction

Answer 1

Answer:

This question is actually an English Language question not a Geography question.

The task is to select the option that is most grammatically correct with respect to Subject-Verb agreement and parallelism.

Subject verb agreement simply means the subject and verb must agree in number. This means both need to be singular or both need to be plural.

The Answer therefore is A) core rotates independently of and more quickly than Earth's outer layers is responsible for advancing studies of the flow of heat from the inner through the outer planet and of the formation and periodic reversal in direction of Earth's magnetic field

Explanation:  

In the line "The discovery is responsible for advancing the studies (1. of the flow of heat 2. of the formation and periodic reversal)"

The first clue is that the subject is the discovery, a singular and therefore the main verb will be "is". So eliminate options C and D.

Option B misses the parallel "of" in the second part.

Option E distorts the parallelism by stating "of how" in the second part

Only option A only maintains the prepositional parallelism

Dusted!