No only smoking cigarettes but also cigar smoking has been banned now

Thanks for a great explanation. It's always comforting when one sees answers confirmed by experts. There are instances when two different people have different OAs.

I'm not too sure but I think I remember that Tommy Wallach (one of Manhattan Instructors) once said that there are constructions that don't always follow the '...not only...but also...' rule.

Werewolf,

Grammatically, it is possible (though HIGHLY suspect) to have a "not only...but" structure. However, the GMAT loves to test your understanding of why "not only...but also" is necessary for purposes of parallelism.

As with "numbers" (i.e. "My favorite numbers are six and twelve."), and "being" (i.e. "My uncle Charlie is a human being.") there are times when you can use "not only...but." Still, they VERY rarely include GMAT questions, so it's pretty safe to forget about them for our purposes.

Brett

In E, I took "Smoking" as a gerund thus is is in SV with "is" and thus I chose E as it is concise. In B "Cigarette smoking and cigar smoking" is wordy. Also the placement of NOW seems correct in E.

You are right that (E) is more concise. However, we need to remember that concision is ONLY a tie-breaker on SC.

Far more important than concision is GRAMMAR. If an answer is grammatically incorrect, it must be crossed off.

Once you've dealt with all the grammatical issues, you can then look at the MEANING of the sentence. If the meaning is changed in an answer choice, then that answer is incorrect.

Only after you've dealt with GRAMMAR and MEANING should you consider CONCISION. Concision is very much a tiebreaker on the GMAT, and in my experience the shortest answer tends to be incorrect because it leaves out something important. Remember that the GMAT writers know people are looking for concise answers, so concise answers are a great place for a trap.

In this problem answer choice A is not correct only because it is in passive voice is that correct. Otherwise there is no gramatical mistake?

Good question! The answer has two parts:

1. General: No SC answer choice will ever be wrong simply on the basis of passive vs. active verbs. Although we tend to prefer the active voice (many of your future Business school professors will point this out regularly), there is no rule that says "passive voice is wrong."

2. Specific to this question: "No only smoking cigarettes but also cigar smoking has been banned now..." Although you are correct that this is passive voice ("has been banned"), the reason this answer choice is wrong really relates to parallelism. First, you have the "not only...but also" issue. When you have "but also" you really should have "not only" also. Here, you have "no only." This might be a typo on the part of the original poster. Second, and perhaps even more grammatically sound: The two things that follow each of these signal phrases should be parallel. "Smoking cigarettes" and "cigar smoking" are not parallel; the first phrase starts with the verb "smoking" and the second starts with the noun "cigar."

Does that all make sense?

Brett

(A) Not only smoking cigarettes but also cigar smoking has been banned now (the parallelism marker has to put two same elements in parallel, here smoking cigarettes should be parallel to smoking cigar which is not the case) (INCORRECT)

(B) Cigarette smoking and cigar smoking are both banned now (the parallelism is between two similar type of elements) (CORRECT)

(C) Not only has smoking cigarettes been banned but (also is missing) so has cigar smoking (parallelism marker is incomplete)

(D) Both smoking cigarettes and cigar smoking is now banned (same mistake as A, smoking cigarettes should be parallel to smoking cigar which is not the case) (INCORRECT)

(E) Smoking cigarettes as well as smoking is missing cigars is now banned (smoking cigar as well as smoking cigarettes is ban, word ambiguity) (INCORRECT)

Answer is B

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