Stephen Jay Gould

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uptowngirl92: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 447; Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:08 pm; Location: Kolkata,India; Thanked: 7 times; GMAT Score:670

by uptowngirl92 » Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:17 pm

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits are not the products of natural selection, favored due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival, but that they are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.

(A) due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival, but that they are

(B) due to the reproduction or survival they enhance, but they are

(C) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but

(D) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but are

(E) because of enhancing reproduction or survival, but are

OA D

Please explain why C is incorrect.

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits are not the products of natural selection, [spoiler][spoiler=]favored because they enhance reproduction or survival,[/spoiler][/spoiler] but simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:17 pm

Testluv: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1302; Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:13 pmFollowed by: 164 members; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 539 times; GMAT Score:800

by Testluv » Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:26 pm

Hi uptowngirl92,

My version of the sentence: "...Gould has argued that they ARE not A,..., but ARE B..."

So notice a couple of things about my reading of the sentence. First, it often helps to cut out unnecessary internal modifying phrases. That phrase here is: ", favored due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival,". It then becomes easier to check for common errors that occur. When we do that we see that, for reasons of parallelism, we would need another "are". [they ARE NOT A...but ARE B]

B/c choice C does not have this second "are", it is wrong.

Kaplan Teacher in Toronto

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uptowngirl92: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 447; Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:08 pm; Location: Kolkata,India; Thanked: 7 times; GMAT Score:670

by uptowngirl92 » Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:33 pm

'are not ... but are' and 'are not ... but' ..I though both were parallel.no?

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Testluv: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1302; Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:13 pmFollowed by: 164 members; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 539 times; GMAT Score:800

by Testluv » Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:40 pm

Perhaps there is some oddball construction (english is a language of exceptions) where that would be parallel but I am confident in saying that 49 times out of 50 "are not...but are" is parallel while "are not...but" is not. I think it also becomes easier to see this if you appreciate the speaker's intended meaning (use critical reasoning in sc, not just grammar rules!).

Kaplan Teacher in Toronto

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