Sentence Correction

shivani.magan wrote:Can someone please help me figure out the difference?

Thanks

Hi,

Proponents of the theory of spontaneous generation argued that simple living organisms sprang to life not through a recognizable reproductive process but came to life independently from non living matter.



This sentence uses an idiom "not X but Y", where X and Y must be logically as well as grammatically parallel.

Choice A: X = "through a recognizable reproductive process", a prepositional phrase, which is grammatically not parallel to "came to life...", a verb phrase.

Choice B: Use of "and" leads to incorrect idiom.

Choice E: Use of past perfect "had come" is incorrect.

Now between C and D, the latter is preferred because it is more concise. Verb phrases "sprang to life" and "came to life" have the same meaning. Choice D does not repeat the expression and "sprang to life" stands for both, "not through a recognizable process" and "but independently from non-living matter". Hence, D is the correct answer.

The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.

In this OG sentence, we again have the same idiom "not X but Y", where X = "in a flash of light", a prepositional phrase, and Y = "evolved slowly...", a verb phrase. The two entities are grammatically not parallel.

Choice A: Parallelism error.

Choice B: Same error.

Choice C: Correct.

Choice D: Use of past perfect tense "had slowly evolved" is incorrect.

Choice E: Parallelism error.

Notice that in this sentence, there are two verbs in "that" clause", "did not spring to life" and "evolved" which do not have the same meaning. We need to retain both the verbs in the sentence to convey the intended meaning of the sentence.

The detailed video solution to this OG problem is available for free in the section OG Solutions. Just register and view the solution.

The concepts tested in this sentence have been covered in e-gmat concepts:
1. Level 1 - Parallelism - Identify & Correct
2. Level 1 - Parallelism - Helpful Tips
3. Level 1 - verb sequencing

Hope this helps.
Shraddha