All one has to do with cattle is to leave/leave

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It is an oversimplified view of cattle raising to say that all one has to do with cattle is leave them alone while they feed themselves, corral them, and to drive them to the market when the time is ripe.

A.
B. all one has to do with cattle is to leave them alone to feed themselves, to corral them, and
C. all one has to do with cattle is leave them alone while they feed themselves and then corral them and
D. the only thing that has to be done with cattle is leave them alone while they feed themselves, corral them, and
E. the only thing that has to be done with cattle is to leave them alone while they feed themselves, to corral them, and

Please answer with explanation.

My doubts are:
- Do so many "and", as in C, make the sentence clumsy or arkward? If not, when to use such "and"?
- What are the differences between "is to leave" and "is leave" in the above sentences? And how to use each case?
Another case: is "is leaving them alone ..." correct?
Many thanks to who can clear my doubts.

[spoiler]OA: later[/spoiler]
"There is nothing either good or bad - but thinking makes it so" - Shakespeare.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by Tani » Sun Oct 03, 2010 8:31 pm
This is about parallelism. First, since the sentence lists three things to do, the options starting with "the only thing" (singular) are wrong. That leaves out D and E.

The "to" must be used either before the first item in the list only or before all three. Only C gets that right.
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by limestone » Sun Oct 03, 2010 8:49 pm
Yup, OA is C. Many thanks to Tani.

As I understand, are these sentences both correct?

All I have to do now are to find a car, to pick Jane up, and to take her to the cinema.

All I have to do now are to find a car, pick Jane up, and take her to the cinema.
"There is nothing either good or bad - but thinking makes it so" - Shakespeare.

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by Tani » Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:00 pm
Your parallels are correct, but "all" takes "is".
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by psychomath » Sun Oct 03, 2010 10:55 pm
Hi Tani,

Could you tell us why "All that has to be done ..." is wrong here? Is it because it is passive? or any other reason? I was down to C and E and chose E :(

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