GMAT OG 2019 The final decades of the

Hello Everyone!

This is a pretty straightforward one to tackle today, so let’s get started!

The final decades of the twentieth century not only saw an explosion of the literary production among women, but there was also an intense interest in the lives and works of women writers.

A. not only saw an explosion of the literary production among women, but there was also
B. not only saw an explosion of literary production in women, but there was also
C. saw not only an explosion of literary production among women, but also
D. saw not only an explosion of the literary production by women, but it also saw
E. saw not only an explosion of literary production by women, but also saw

The first thing you should have noticed is the use of the “not only X, but also Y” structure to each option. Whenever we see this, the first thing we should check is if X and Y are written using parallel structure! This is the most common issue with this type of question on the GMAT, so we’ll start there.

For the option to be parallel in structure, the word "saw" needs to be used the same way on both sides. If the word "saw" comes before the "not only," it does NOT need to be included in the second half. If the word "saw" comes after "not only," it MUST be included in the second half:

not only saw X, but also saw Y = PARALLEL
saw not only X, but also Y = PARALLEL
not only saw X, but also Y = NOT PARALLEL
saw not only X, but also saw Y = NOT PARALLEL

To make things a little easier, I added a few words after the underlined portion to help better see if things are parallel. Let's see how each option stacks up!

A. not only saw an explosion of the literary production among women, but there was also an intense interest --> NOT PARALLEL

B. not only saw an explosion of literary production in women, but there was also an intense interest --> NOT PARALLEL

C. saw not only an explosion of literary production among women, but also an intense interest --> PARALLEL
(this is CORRECT because both sides follow the “not only an…but also an…” structure)

D. saw not only an explosion of the literary production by women, but it also saw an intense interest --> NOT PARALLEL

E. saw not only an explosion of literary production by women, but also saw an intense interest --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it! Option C is CORRECT because it is the only sentence that uses parallel structure for both parts of the “not only X, but also Y” idiomatic structure!


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