Differences Between Mitosis and Meiosis, Help please

[Mikeylikey]

Hey all, I am a first year student at college. I have always lagged in biology so I am struggling with something my first semester. I have a quiz tomorrow and am having some trouble with one of the questions maybe you guys could help me out.

Explain how the combination of fusion and meiotic cell division makes it possible for two haploid cells each with lethal double stranded DNA damage to produce four health (as in no DNA damage) haploid cells.
This part of the question I understand, fusion+meiotic division adds recombinational repair, and after repair meiosis resumes and makes the 4 haploids.
2nd part:
Suppose that after fusion the resultant diploid cell underwent mitotic cell division instead of meiotic cell division. What would be the major difference in how the chromosomes align prior to cell division? briefly discuss how this alignment difference results in daughter cells generated by mitotic cell division being different than daughter cells generated by meiotic cell division.
I have looked through my notes and textbook and all I can really sum up is that in the second instance using mitotic division, a tetrad would not be formed. I feel like that isn't a complete explanation, any help filling in some gaps would be appreciated.

[JackBean]

sorry, no idea

[dkush87]

Essentially you are correct. During a meiotic cell division, homologous chromosomes form a tetrad during synapsis and undergo disjunction during Anaphase I, reducing the total chromosome number by half. During mitosis however, homologous chromosomes do not pair up. During anaphase of mitosis, sister chromatids separate eventually resulting in two cells, each with a full set of chromosomes.