Parallelism!!!!!

[s_raizada]

In recent years cattle breeders have increasingly used crossbreeding, in part that their steers should
acquire certain characteristics and partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor.
(A) in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics
(B) in part for the acquisition of certain characteristics in their steers
(C) partly because of their steers acquiring certain characteristics
(D) partly because certain characteristics should be acquired by their steers
(E) partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers


OA is E

The only problem I have with this is parallelism

'partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers' is a phrase whereas 'partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor' is a clause

How can coordinating conjuction 'and' join a phrase with a clause. To be truely parallel both element on either side of and should be structurally parallel.

[wawatan]

(A) in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics
(B) in part for the acquisition of certain characteristics in their steers
(C) partly because of their steers acquiring certain characteristics
(D) partly because certain characteristics should be acquired by their steers
(E) partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers


well I know A and B are wrong.

so the answer choices are narrowed down to c, d, and e.

for c, the meaning of the sentence is changed. it sounds like the farmers are forced to crossbreed the cows because the cows are acquiring bad characteristics (ex. diseases). the original meaning of the sentence is saying that the farmers want to crossbreed the cows in order to get better characteristics...

in answer choice d it uses "should be", this is always wrong on the gmat.

so this leaves e. can't really tell you why e is correct but i know why all the others are wrong.