Double-check the answer. My book says E

I remember seeing the question before. What's the source. I'd be interested in the explanation.

Hey All,

No one bothered to explain this one on here, so I figured I'd weigh in, since it's a quick one.

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

Obviously, this is a parallelism issue. Every list needs to have "and" at the end. You can't use "and" twice, unless the second to last item in the list is a compound. For example: "I like all kinds of sandwiches: reuben, turkey, pastrami, peanut butter and jelly, and veggie." But in that case, there are two nouns in that second to last entry (peanut butter and jelly). We don't have that here, so there's no justification for having two "and"s.

(A) and meat rarely
PROBLEM: No and allowed.

(B) and meat was rare
PROBLEM: Again.

(C) with meat as rare
PROBLEM: You can't just say "meat as rare". As sets up either a comparison ("meat as rare as an uncooked log.") or some type of prepositional phrase ("meat as metaphor for life...").

(D) meat a rarity
PROBLEM: We need some segue from the last item in the list.

(E) with meat as a rarity
ANSWER: We get the prepositional phrase. It's a bit odd, since it's modifying something that came a long time ago, but it's still the best choice.

Hope that helps!

-tommy
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Tommy,

I think there a list can have OR or AND in the end and not just AND as per your opinion. If there is list of options to choose from then OR is correct.

Please check.


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serhio,

This is not my question. Please read carefully what I have asked Tommy.



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You can interpret the sentence as if there were two lists. In that case, 2 "ands" were allowed. Actually, the best answer would be:

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and rarely mexican.


Two lists, two ands.
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E... the list gets over, hence you need a "with"..

This is an OG question
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