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grandh01: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 265; Joined: Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:04 pm; Followed by:6 members

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by grandh01 » Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:49 pm

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.
(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved
(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved
(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but they were slowly evolved.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:49 pm

vk_vinayak: Legendary Member; Posts: 502; Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:36 pm; Thanked: 99 times; Followed by:21 members

by vk_vinayak » Fri Aug 10, 2012 12:23 am

grandh01 wrote: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.
(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly >> In the idiom 'not X but Y', X and Y should be parallel. Here that parallelism is violated.

(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved >> Same as A.

(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly >> Correct. Maintains proper tense and parallelism.

(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved >> No need to use past perfect.

(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but they were slowly evolved. >> Passive voice makes the sentence awkward. Repetition of the subject (they) is not needed.

Going Forward, please post the SC question with proper undelining.