The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the correct choice! First, let's take a quick look at the original question and highlight the major differences between the options in orange:

The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of his early experiments in his "Essay on Heat and Light", a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found.

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well
(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of
(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

After a quick glance over the options, we can clearly see there are a few places we can focus on:

1. "a critique of" vs. "critiquing"
2. since / following / after / from Robert Boyle...
3. as well as... / and also... / and...

Let's start with #1 on our list: "a critique of" versus "critiquing." This will eliminate either 2 or 3 options, so it's a great place to start!

If we look carefully, we can see that the underlined portion of this sentence is part of a modifier that's giving us more information on "Essay on Heat and Light." What is it? A critique of chemistry that existed after Robert Boyle. Using -ing modifiers only works when we're modifying people, so the "critiquing" options aren't correct. Since we're modifying an object, we should use the phrase "a critique of" to convey that the modifier is referring to the essay, and not the person who wrote it. Let's see how each option breaks down:

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well
(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of
(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

We can eliminate options D & E because they use "critiquing," which is mean to modify people, not objects!

Since so many people in the comments got hung up on the since/following/after concept, let's skip it and move to #3 on our list for now, which deals with parallelism!

The underlined modifier indicates that "Essay on Heat and Light" accomplishes two things:

1. Critiques the field of chemistry after Robert Boyle wrote about it
2. Creates a vision of a new chemistry Davy hopes to find

These two items must be written using parallel structure, so let's take a closer look at each option to figure out which ones use parallel structure and rule out those that don't. To make it easier to spot, I've added the ending to each option. Here's how they break down:

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> PARALLEL
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> NOT PARALLEL
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option A is the correct choice because it uses parallel structure and phrases the modifier clearly!

(*One final note: If you are concerned that the sentence should say "...that Davy hoped to find" instead of "...that Davy hoped to found," I agree with you! I think this was a typo created by the person who originally posted this, so disregard that error and focus on the rest of the post!)


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