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The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal

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The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 18 Jul 2009, 00:57
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The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.
(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved
(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved
(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 18 Jul 2009, 09:18
skim wrote:
The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.
(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved
(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved
(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved


A

use of idiom....'Not X... but Y'
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 18 Jul 2009, 10:12
skim wrote:
The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.
(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved
(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved
(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved



C for me. Not spring...but evolved is idiomatic. In A, Not in a flash of inspiration...but evolved is not parallel.
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 22 Jul 2009, 03:59
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 22 Jul 2009, 05:59
After search I found that choices are different in the question:

original wrote:
The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works

A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved
C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved
E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but they were slowly evolved


still the OA is C.
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Last edited by sudeep on 22 Jul 2009, 06:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 18 Aug 2009, 23:06
Not X but Y,
X and Y should be parallel
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 12 Jun 2010, 09:16
hasham222 wrote:
skim wrote:
The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.
(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved
(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved
(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved


A

use of idiom....'Not X... but Y'



A is not para||. not in flash .... but <in missing>
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 12 Jun 2010, 11:13
hey SudiptoGmat
I like the way you nailed it.

C best answer did not spring (simple past) .....but evolved (simple past) .

SudiptoGmat wrote:
hasham222 wrote:
skim wrote:
The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.
(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved
(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly
(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved
(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved


A

use of idiom....'Not X... but Y'



A is not para||. not in flash .... but <in missing>

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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 12 Jun 2010, 14:46
C is correct...

lesson to be learnt.....refresh refresh...idioms need to maintain parallel structures...

'Not in X but in Y'


Thanks
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 21 Jun 2010, 07:39
I struggled between A and C but luckily remebered the idiom and picked C.

C for me.
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Re: personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison [#permalink] New post 21 Jun 2010, 09:26
seekmba wrote:
I struggled between A and C but luckily remebered the idiom and picked C.

C for me.


I go with C ..
[Reveal] Spoiler:


just checking howto use spoiler
reg
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 24 Jun 2012, 08:39
d)did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved

what is wrong with option d
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 24 Jun 2012, 11:34
In D, the use of past perfect 'had evolved' to describe the nature of a phenomenon is erroneous. The springing and evolving are concurrent happenings and so there is no need to sequence them as one before the other. That is why D loses
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 25 Jun 2012, 13:34
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This question tests parallelism. Indeed most of the wrong answers can be eliminated simply because of lack of parallelism (see below).

The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.

(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

'Not in a Noun Phrase but in a Noun Phrase' is violated by the use of the verb 'evolved.'

(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

Same problem as in (A), but this time because of 'were slowly evolved.'

(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

'Did not 'Verb Phrase + Prepositional Phrase but 'Verb Phrase + PP' is maintained here. The Answer.

(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved

The use of past perfect, 'had...evolved' is unnecessary.

(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

Use of the passive construction, 'were slowly evolved' invalidates this answer choice.


Hope that helps :)
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 31 Jul 2012, 12:39
But if we need to maintain parallelism, spring is just in base form where as evolved is past tense . Can someone please explain this?

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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 01 Aug 2012, 10:11
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"srikirs007"]But if we need to maintain parallelism, spring is just in base form where as evolved is past tense . Can someone please explain this?


(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

Notice that "did" appears before "spring". Hence we cannot write "sprang" because we cannot write two past tenses in same sentence. Note that "did not spring" = "sprang" which is parallel to past tense "evolved". The structure of the sentence is such that "spring" and "evolved" cannot be identically parallel. But both the verb tenses are in simple past tense. And that is why they are parallel.

Hence, it is not always necessary that all the entities in a list must be identically parallel. They should be made identically parallel only when it is possible to do so. In an e-gmat course concept namely Parallelism - Helpful Tips, we discuss how far entities can be parallel in the list.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

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Last edited by egmat on 06 Aug 2012, 07:20, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 05 Aug 2012, 18:00
Awesome, thanks for the explanation.
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 25 Nov 2012, 02:30
ChrisLele wrote:
This question tests parallelism. Indeed most of the wrong answers can be eliminated simply because of lack of parallelism (see below).

The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.

(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

'Not in a Noun Phrase but in a Noun Phrase' is violated by the use of the verb 'evolved.'

(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

Same problem as in (A), but this time because of 'were slowly evolved.'

(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

'Did not 'Verb Phrase + Prepositional Phrase but 'Verb Phrase + PP' is maintained here. The Answer.

(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved

The use of past perfect, 'had...evolved' is unnecessary.

(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

Use of the passive construction, 'were slowly evolved' invalidates this answer choice.


Hope that helps :)


(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

Use of the passive construction, 'were slowly evolved' invalidates this answer choice.


Hi Chris,
You mention the above as the reason why E is wrong.
So, Do we need the voices ( passive/active ) to be parallel in a x but y structure?

Regards,
Sach
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 27 Nov 2012, 20:25
The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.
(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly structure not X but Y should be grammatically parallel - in a flash is not parallel to evolved
(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved structure not X but Y should be grammatically parallel - in a flash is not parallel to were slowly
(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly CORRECT - structure X but Y should be grammatically parallel - did not spring is not parallel to evolved
(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved grammatically nonparallel
(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolvedgrammatically nonparallel
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal [#permalink] New post 28 Nov 2012, 08:22
Could some expert please reply to my question above?
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Re: The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal   [#permalink] 28 Nov 2012, 08:22
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