Contrary to popular opinion, the movement toward a service economy is

Given:
the movement toward a service economy is leading neither to X, <more of an unequal distribution of income>, or Y.

<more of an unequal distribution of income> modifies X

->the movement toward a service economy is leading neither to X or displacing Y.

The idiom is neither X nor Y


B. leading neither to lower standards of living nor a more unequal distribution of income, or
>>leading neither to X nor Z, or displacing Y.
undiomatic

C. not leading to either lower standards of living nor to more of an unequal distribution of income, and neither is it
>>wrong usage of "either"

D. not leading to lower standards of living, more of an unequal distribution of income, and it is not
>>undiomatic
idiom not X or Y

E. not leading to lower standards of living or to a more unequal distribution of income, nor is it
>>idiomatic
not leading to X or Y, nor is it Y

I dint understand the Answer, can someone please tell me the OA

Contrary to popular opinion, the movement toward a service economy is leading neither to lower standards of living, more of an unequal distribution of income, or displacing the physical production of goods.
(A) leading neither to lower standards of living, more of an unequal distribution of income, or
(B) leading neither to lower standards of living nor a more unequal distribution of income, or
(C) not leading to either lower standards of living nor to more of an unequal distribution of income, and neither is it
(D) not leading to lower standards of living, more of an unequal distribution of income, and it is not
(E) not leading to lower standards of living or to a more unequal distribution of income, nor is it

Nowhere they have used the correct idiom i.e. 'neither nor'

Here dont look for just the idiom. Look at the sentence as well. A,C and D can be ruled out because both the idiom usage and the sentence construction are wrong.
B has the correct idiom but 'or' after the comma does not give the correct meaning to the sentence.
E fits best.

Hope this helps.

First, B is wrong because you can't say "neither . . . or"--you need "nor." However, the flaw in parallelism isn't between "leading" and "displacing," but between "neither to lower standards" and "nor a more unequal distribution."

We need to say "This leads neither to X nor to Y" or "This leads to neither X nor Y." This is a general rule of parallelism. It's the same principle that make this wrong:

I don't like my new laptop because it is buggy, cumbersome, and it is crash-prone.

I should say "it is buggy, cumbersome, and crash-prone," or (if I must) "it is buggy, it is cumbersome, and it is crash-prone." (This latter approach, which uses repetition for emphasis, would be more likely to show up in a speech or an essay than on an SC problem.) In any case, do you see the issue? Since "neither . . . nor" serves as our pair of parallelism markers, the items after those markers need to match precisely. An extra part of speech, such as a preposition ("to") or a pronoun ("it") breaks the parallelism spell!

It is right that GMAT seldom test idiom, so better ignore them unless nothing else can be considered!

OA is E, and let's analyze the options from the parallelism angle: this is a dual-level parallel question.
The context is saying that the "movement" is not leading to two bad results, and it is not displacing sth. that originally existed.
The two bad results are: (1) lower standards of living. (2) an unequal distribution of income.
(Use our common macro-economic sense, and we know that the two issues are parallel, since either issue cannot explain the other.)

(A) leading neither to lower standards of living, more of an unequal distribution of income, or
Wrong.
(1) "more of" means "the thing mentioned above really looks like blablabla". However, the latter is not used to explain the former.
(2) They are not parallel.

(B) leading neither to lower standards of living nor a more unequal distribution of income, or
Wrong.
(1) The structures "neither to lower standards of living" and "nor a more unequal distribution" are not parallel. A "to" in the latter is missing in the latter.
(2) Here the relationship of "leading" and "displacing" is wrong: This option is saying that one of them will occur (see "or" ), but in fact both will occur.

(C) not leading to either lower standards of living nor to more of an unequal distribution of income, and neither is it
Wrong.
(1) The structures "to either lower standards of living" and "nor to more of an unequal distribution" are not parallel.
(2) "and neither" looks really redundant. "neither" itself is enough.

(D) not leading to lower standards of living, more of an unequal distribution of income, and it is not
Wrong.
(1) "more of" means "the thing mentioned above really looks like blablabla". However, the latter is not used to explain the former.
(2) Since this is a negative description, we do not prefer "and it is not". "nor" will be better.

(E) not leading to lower standards of living or to a more unequal distribution of income, nor is it
Correct.
Note that "nor is it" is an inversion.

BTW, seriously, by simply looking at the end of the sentence and considering the relationship between "leading" and "replacing", we can cross out "or" and "and". Then OA is E.

I rejected option E because I thought here the list is unparallell
not leading to lower standards of living
or to a more unequal distribution of income,
nor is it

Can you please explain why D is wrong and E is correct??

nor is present without neither. How is it correct?

The construction "neither... nor..." is certainly common, but it is not the ONLY correct usage of the word "nor".

"Nor" can also be used to introduce an additional negative statement. For example,

The food at the fancy restaurant was not very good, nor was it reasonably priced.

If you see "neither... nor...", you absolutely need to check for parallelism. But that does not mean that "nor" cannot appear on its own.

I hope that helps!

Just as OR can be used without EITHER, so too can NOR be used without NEITHER

'x nor y'
= 'neither x nor y'
= 'not x nor y'
= 'not x and not y'

With the 'either - or' and 'neither - nor' constructions, it is easy to check for parallelism: reason being that we know exactly where x begins

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