Reptiles body heat

Since different ways of generating body heat are contrasted, parallel structures must be maintained ("by drawing rather than [by] burning" OR "by drawing instead of [by] burning" would be ideal). The full solution below is taken from the GMATFix App.



-Patrick

Hey!
When will I know "by" is implied or not implied?
I choose "D", because "A" was missing "by".

Regards,
mukherjee

[email protected] wrote:Hey!
When will I know "by" is implied or not implied?
I choose "D", because "A" was missing "by".

Regards,
mukherjee

You might want to check this link out:

https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=instead+of

Instead of is traditionally considered a preposition. So, instead of by would be incorrect in formal contexts. That's one thing that makes choice D) wrong; the second part of it ("for...") is unidiomatic too. In choice A), by is optional. If you included it, that would be fine too.

Also,

By drawing...rather than [by] burning....

is more parallel than

By drawing...instead of burning....

because instead of cannot properly be followed by by. I don't think the second one is wrong, but the first one is definitely better.

D: instead of by burning
of = preposition.
by burning = modifier.
The object of a preposition must be a NOUN.
by burning (modifier) cannot serve as the object of of (preposition).
Eliminate D.

A key distinction between instead of and rather than:
While instead of must be followed by a noun, rather than can be followed by virtually any part of speech (noun, verb, modifier, etc).

There also is a difference in meaning.
For an explanation of this difference, check my post here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/i-dont-have- ... 69313.html
In the SC above, instead of -- which means IN PLACE OF -- implies that reptiles are REPLACING one bodily process (burning) with another (drawing).
Not the intended meaning.