Here are some examples of linking verbs where the first verb leads into the second verb. These are preferred–though they do not necessarily other forms are incorrect:
I want her to study.
The law requires you to make…
She recommends I vote.
She recommends me to vote.

These examples are a bit different from the one in the question. These are in the form of A wants something out of B. She wants me to vote. The law requires you to make. etc..

In the above question, both forms (With or without the “to”) are acceptable. “She helped me grow the business” and “she helped me to grow the business”–both are ok.

So the question here is not testing which one is right or wrong.
She helped grow the business. —ok
She helped to grow the business. —ok
She helped shape public opinion. —ok
She helped to shape public opinion. —ok

There are always preferred and non-preferred ways of wording things on the GMAT. Your job is to figure out what ELSE is being tested. If there are other problems in the questions–focus on those.

Notice in an example where both forms are acceptable, you will never be in a situation where you need to choose one or the other because there will be other errors in the sentence.

In (C), the problem is the word “like” since you should be using the form of “such…as..” rather than “such….like…”

In (A), the problem is also the word “like”—”like” should not be used when giving an example. “Like” should be used in comparing two things.
Here you are providing examples of “fundamentally important areas”—for this you use “as.”

So this question is not testing “shape vs to shape”–it is testing “such as vs like.”

GMATPill Response To This GMAT Verbal Question:

I surprisingly arrived at answer (B) fairly quickly without looking at (C), (D), or (E).

“The fact of some fraternal twins resembling” is definitely wrong.
You cannot say “the fact of”—it has to be “the fact that XYZ resemble each other”

I looked at the first few words of all the answer choices and none of them had “the fact that.” But I was sure (A) was wrong. Therefore, I looked at (B).

Most people would think that since the sentence begins with “That the”—then it’s automatically wrong. But since I’ve seen lots of questions I know it’s not common in spoken language, but on the GMAT this format is correct.
I read it as:
“That [this fact] highlights an interesting and often overlooked…”

It’s common for people to say “That highlights an interesting point.”
What is “that” referring to?
In this case, “that” is referring to: “That some fraternal twins resemble each other greatly while others look quite dissimilar.”

So (B) looks like the right answer.

So continue reading the sentence and you’ll see there’s nothing wrong with it. So I’m pretty confident (B) is the answer without even reading through (C), (D), and (E).

But now looking at (C) and (D) I see “With…”
For phrases that begin with “with”–you need to ask yourself WHO or WHAT is WITH something?
The answer is: the subject of what’s after the COMMA.
In both cases, the subject is “it highlights” in (C) and “it is a fact” in (D).

Neither makes sense. We don’t know what “it” is.

The logic in (E) aslo does not make sense.

So based on the initial gut that the answer was (B) along with some quick analysis of (C), (D), and (E)—-we conclude the answer as (B).

GMAT Prep Questions With Video Explanation

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GMAT Pill Explanation For This GMAT Question | GMAT Prep

Same idea as the Official Guide Critical Reasoning Question #124. There’s no IF…..THEN….. structure. But try to think of visual diagrams. Is the first some data/evidence that leads into the second conclusion? Or is A saying something and then B saying that A is not true?

Well, it should be clear that A is like a scientific data point. Looks like a statistic right? So obviously a statistic must be evidence that leads to something else. That something else is the second bolded statement—a conclusion. So A leads to B.

(A) “claim” is fine but then it says “accuracy of which is at issue in the argument”—this is not right. We are not questioning the statistic mentioned in the first bold statement.

(B) “objection” is not correct–again we have evidence/statistics here–not an objection
(C) “evidence” is ok..but the argument does not challenge the explanation at the end. In fact, the whole paragraph argument is supporting the last sentence as an explanation. So (C) is off here.

(D) “evidence” is ok but again same thing..the phrase “that the argument challenges” should be “that the argument supports”

(E) “evidence is OK…and finally! we see “evidence to support an explanation that the argument favors”–that’s what we want. Both (C) and (D) used “that the argument challenges” which is incorrect.

So finally we find (E) as the correct answer!