A wave of new seltzer bars and bottle shops all opened in the last

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

As in any sentence correction problem, try to find the easiest decision point to assess first. Here that is the subject-verb agreement choice between “is” and “are” at the end of each answer. Using slash-and-burn to locate the subject, you see this sentence is really: “A wave…is fueling” or “A wave…are fueling.” With the garbage removed, it is clear that verb needs to be “is” so you can eliminate (A) and (B).

The choice between (C), (D), and (E) is more difficult. While there are several differences between the choices, the one that matters is the choice between “while/and others do not” and “others not”. In a case like this, when you are omitting the verb form from the second part, you need to make sure the form you are using matches the form used previously. An easy way to check that is to simply put the original form where it is omitted and see if it works.

In this sentence, you have two choices:

“some serving mostly alcoholic versions while/and others do not SERVING them” NO – this does not work

OR

“some serving mostly alcoholic versions and others not SERVING them” YES – this works.

As a result, the correct answer is (D) as it is the only one with proper subject-verb agreement and a parallel construction where the verb form is omitted.