Sentence Correction

Not only do deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but they also fall prey to decompression sickness, commonly known as the "bends", if they ascend too quickly.

a] Not only do deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but
b] Deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but
c] Nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", is risked by deep-sea divers if they descend below 200 feet, in addition
d] Descending below 200 feet causes deep-sea divers to risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep" and
e] Not only does a deep-sea diver risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but


OA A

IMO A

", in addition " in C makes it a run on sentence.
But in B makes it awkward. AND inplace of it would have been better.
D looks awkward and in E "they" doesnt refer clearly.

kvcpk wrote:IMO A

Explain ur choice please

er_priyankajolly wrote:

kvcpk wrote:IMO A

Explain ur choice please

Edited my post with short explanation. Please check!!

kvcpk wrote:IMO A

", in addition " in C makes it a run on sentence.
But in B makes it awkward. AND inplace of it would have been better.
D looks awkward and in E "they" doesnt refer clearly.

Why "but" in B is awkward

"often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet,"

These two phrases are just support phrases to the sentence. Let us remove them and read B option.

Deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, but they also fall prey to decompression sickness, commonly known as the "bends", if they ascend too quickly.

But is used when there is a complementing phrase before or after it. As we see here but is unnecessary and can be replaced with and to maintain the meaning of the sentence.

Hope this helps!!

kvcpk wrote:IMO A

", in addition " in C makes it a run on sentence.
But in B makes it awkward. AND inplace of it would have been better.
D looks awkward and in E "they" doesnt refer clearly.

Can you please tell why D is awkward?
isn't that 'Not only.... but they also'' is not parallel?

missionGMAT007 wrote:

kvcpk wrote:IMO A

", in addition " in C makes it a run on sentence.
But in B makes it awkward. AND inplace of it would have been better.
D looks awkward and in E "they" doesnt refer clearly.

Can you please tell why D is awkward?
isn't that 'Not only.... but they also'' is not parallel?

in D, " nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep" "

"raptures of the deep" is not clear whether it is referring to divers or nitrogen narcosis.

Also, I believe that the phrase "causes deep-sea divers to risk " is awkward construction.

Moreover, "Descending below 200 feet causes deep-sea divers to risk nitrogen narcosis" - it is not clear on nitrogen narcosis is at risk or divers are at risk.

Hope this helps!!

I'm a bit confused by one aspect of this sentence.

The sentence uses "not only....but (pronoun) also;" is this acceptable usage of the conjunction? I was under the impression that "not only...but also" was required without the pronoun.

The sentence could then be "not only...but also they..." although not in the any of the answer choices, but maybe it should be written differently.

Could someone please help?

what is OA?

Not only do deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but they also fall prey to decompression sickness, commonly known as the "bends", if they ascend too quickly.

a] Not only do deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but
b] Deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but
c] Nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", is risked by deep-sea divers if they descend below 200 feet, in addition
d] Descending below 200 feet causes deep-sea divers to risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep" and
e] Not only does a deep-sea diver risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but

Hi Priyanka, The reason why this question is troubling you is that you've learned along the way that the correct usage is "not only ...but also.." (additional knowledge: not X but Y and not only x but also Y are conjunctions. we use conjunctions when we want to connect things that are linguistically equal)

However, on GMAT there is another construction besides not only X but also Y that is also correct: not only X but Y

Now lets analyze the original sentence.

Not only do deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but they also fall prey to decompression sickness, commonly known as the "bends", if they ascend too quickly.

I've divided the sentence into different sub-parts. Parts with similar color are parallel (or at least they should be).

I am listing these sub-parts one below the other.

do deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis
color=blue] they also fall prey to decompression sickness[/color]

Deep sea divers = They (which is correct, no pronoun ambiguity or subject verb error)
risk = fall (same tense, parallel parts)
nitrogen narcosis = decompression (parallel)... So we are okay.

Next bit,
often called "raptures of the deep",
commonly known as the "bends"

Often called = commonly known (parallel, no errors)
"raptures..." = bends (no issues here).. So again we are okay..

if they descend below 200 feet
if they ascend too quickly.[/brown]

These two are pretty much parallel word-to-word... So we are okay.

Possible issues.. Well the only issue i can see is that this sentence uses an inverted If..then structure. i.e. then comes before if .. but grammatically that's okay. But lets evaluate other options.

b] Deep-sea divers risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but

This option is the popular wrong choice. The reason to eliminate this sentence is the intent of the author. Author is comparing two things here, --> what happens when divers dive below 200 feet and what happens when they ascend too quickly.

The intent is to show that not only does X happen but Y also happens.

When we use but .. we are in effect saying that X happens but not yet.. .or X does not happen but Y happens...

So we can rule this out.

c] Nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", is risked by deep-sea divers if they descend below 200 feet, in addition

If you analyze this sentence by dividing it into sub-structures like we did for sentence A, you would realize that this is not parallel. Out of sheer laziness i am not redoing the process here. If you run into trouble. Let me know. So we can rule this option out

d] Descending below 200 feet causes deep-sea divers to risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep" and

This option is an easy one to rule out, the lack of parallelism just jumps out. Eliminate.
e] Not only does a deep-sea diver risk nitrogen narcosis, often called "raptures of the deep", if they descend below 200 feet, but

This option is again easy to eliminate because of subject-verb agreement error. a deep-sea diver is singular and "they is plural" eliminate.

ngoebel wrote:I'm a bit confused by one aspect of this sentence.

The sentence uses "not only....but (pronoun) also;" is this acceptable usage of the conjunction? I was under the impression that "not only...but also" was required without the pronoun.

The sentence could then be "not only...but also they..." although not in the any of the answer choices, but maybe it should be written differently.

Could someone please help?

Ngoebel, as i explained above, this is a trap. "also" in actually part of the complex noun phrase and not part of the idiom not only .. but also..structure.

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