Not only did the systematic clearing of forests in the United States

imSKR -- thanks for your post. So are we saying that in a sentence, pronouns will always refer to the subject of the sentence? If i go by that logic then the question of pronoun ambiguity can only arise when there are multiple subjects in a sentence?

But that is not usually the case, right? I'm still confused, why exactly, pronoun ambiguity is not even a factor in D.

I follow 2 below advise from Gmatninja on this issue :
1. Subject of the 2nd independence clause (if a pronoun) should refer back to the subject of the first I.C. - our first consideration
2. The pronoun should refer to any referents, only one of which should makes sense. You don't want to overreact to that, though. Don't eliminate it immediately, just on that basis alone. But if you have a better option that removes the pronoun ambiguity -- and that doesn't have more serious problems -- go ahead and select the option that removes the ambiguity only if you have other better options.

1. rule-refer to systematic clearing of forests
2. rule- How can furniture deforested whole regions? How can farmland by itself deforested whole regions? - again with this rule, it makes sense with systematic clearing of forests .


In short,
1. pronoun is ambiguous when multiple nouns refer to single pronoun
2. Is there any better option without ambiguity.( Just by removing pronoun doesn't solve the problem. You can not risk structure , meaning and other critical factors for sake of pronoun ambiguity)

As by GmatNinja: Pronoun Ambiguity is admittedly a little bit of a grey area on the GMAT. The GMAT definitely tests pronoun ambiguity, but it isn't an absolute rule that you must need to get rid of pronoun always.

Hi ravigupta2912, in case of pronoun ambiguity, application of following rule often comes in handy:

Pronoun-subject in one clause can be presumed to refer to noun-subject of another clause.

The two clauses here are:
i) The systematic clearing of forests in the United States created farmland (especially in the Northeast) and gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture - The systematic clearing of forests is the noun-subject
ii) it also caused erosion and very quickly deforested whole regions - it is the pronoun-subject

So, it refers to The systematic clearing of forests.

Having said that, it's worth noting that pronoun ambiguity should not be the only reason to eliminate an answer choice.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Pronoun ambiguity, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.
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but what if the sentence is like - She likes not only shaggy puppies, but she also likes short-haired ones

In which context do you ask this question arya251294?

At the very least, I would say that there is a bit of a redundancy issue here, since a more concise construct would be:

She likes not only shaggy puppies but also short-haired ones.
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Not only did the systematic clearing of forests in the United States create farmland (especially in the Northeast) and gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but it also caused erosion and very quickly deforested whole regions.


(A) Not only did the systematic clearing of forests in the United States create farmland (especially in the Northeast) and gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but it also

"did" and "gave" are not parallel to each other. "I did the assignment and gave her candy" is not parallel

(B) Not only did the systematic clearing of forests in the United States create farmland (especially in the Northeast), which gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but also

"Not only did the systematic clearing of forests in the United States create farmland (especially in the Northeast), giving consumers relatively inexpensive..." sounds much better

(C) The systematic clearing of forests in the United States, creating farmland (especially in the Northeast) and giving consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but also

it is choppy. What did the "The systematic clearing of forests in the United States" do? Where is the connector between the clearing of the forests and the creating of farmlands?

(D) The systematic clearing of forests in the United States created farmland (especially in the Northeast) and gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but it also

Clear and parallel. Not wordy. The clearing of forests created X and gave customers Y and Z, but it also ...
NOTE: we can use "but it also" without having "not only"... but we cannot have "not only" without "but it also".

(E) The systematic clearing of forests in the United States not only created farmland (especially in the Northeast), giving consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but it

If you are going to use "not only" you also have to say "but * also"/"but also". Here we used "not only" but NOT "but it also"
* = wildcard

How would you even understand or know the intended meaning.

One can always think, creating farmland gave x cheap furniture. Because there's more supply of wood now?

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Hi GMATGuruNY - You mentioned per the purple, no OA from GMAC has the following construction : not only xx, yy

Would this question perhaps indicate, the GMAT is okay with not only xx, yy construction ?

https://gmatclub.com/forum/as-criminal- ... l#p1696841

If so - is my take-away -- "But" does not have to follow the Not Only X ...

Hello experts sayantanc2k AjiteshArun

I have couple of queries

1. in option A, if we replace gave with give will this option be considered correct? i am asking because sentence construction like this one is not used commonly.

2. i eliminated option B on the basis of following reasoning
in option B , which can not refer back to clause and after but also we do not have any noun to make these two clauses parallel because we do not have any noun outside of not only to carry it over after but also. is this reasoning correct?

Thanks a lot.

Hi kadamhari825,

1. That's an interesting question. Normally, when we start with not only, it is to add emphasis. Also, we usually go from "small" to "big". For example:

1a. Not only did they lose the battle, but they also lost the war. ← The first clause is de-emphasised. The war idea is more important.
1b. Not only did they lose the war, but they also lost the battle. ← This is a little strange. It's hard to understand why we would emphasise the battle.

So your question comes down to whether we can look at "create farmland..." and "caused erosion..." as two surprising things, with the second being even more surprising ("bigger") than the first. It sounds a little strange to me, but I can't say whether it is impossible. I think the GMAT also came to the same conclusion, which is probably why they included gave, so that test takers wouldn't have to take a call solely on the basis of not only... (but also).

2. You're absolutely right when you say that option B lacks parallelism.

2a. Not only did the systematic clearing of forests in the United States create [SUB + VERB] farmland... but also caused [VERB] erosion...
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(A) Not only did the systematic clearing of forests in the United States create farmland (especially in the Northeast) and gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but it also
Not only is not required in the begining to better convey the contrast therefore out

(B) Not only did the systematic clearing of forests in the United States create farmland (especially in the Northeast), which gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but also
which usage is not having the right reference and in the end but should be scuceeded by it therefore out

(C) The systematic clearing of forests in the United States, creating farmland (especially in the Northeast) and giving consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but also
The meaning is off , errorneous usage of giving and it is required in the end therefore out

(D) The systematic clearing of forests in the United States created farmland (especially in the Northeast) and gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but it also
The meaning is perfect therefore out

(E) The systematic clearing of forests in the United States not only created farmland (especially in the Northeast), giving consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture, but it
giving in the middle is not conveying the right meaning therefore out

THerefore IMO D

"not only ,...but also" is used to show 2 similar ideas.
"but also" is used to show 2 ideas in contrast.

In A,D,E - "it" refers to "systematic clearing of forests in USA" which is a clause. So isn't that wrong?

If you refer to a similar question here - "it" cannot refer to "rely on prescriptions to be successful" (which is a clause). So my reasoning was that similar reasoning applies to this question.

Would be grateful if someone can help me. GMATNinja ExpertsGlobal5 egmat VeritasPrepRon EducationAisle

"The systematic clearing of forests in the United States" lacks a verb, so it's actually a big ol' noun phrase, not a clause. "Clearing" is the simple subject, and everything else just modifies that subject. (If you're wondering how an "-ing" word can function as a noun, check out this post.)

So the pronoun ("it") just refers to the subject ("clearing"), along with all of its modifiers.

I hope that helps!
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You might want to refer to this video for developing understanding of the difference between phrases and clauses.

Also, our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses difference between Phrases and Clauses, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.
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in choice E] if I had the sentence-
''..... but it also caused...'' would it be parallel to NOT ONLY construction before.
using pronoun 'IT' after 'BUT' is ok with per idiomatic usage?

GmatTutorKnight

Thanks for your response. Is there any OG qsn where using such a pronoun after 'but' was wrong.

I am wondering because if I consider a sentence: '' I have not only mastered CSS, but I have also learned HTML.

here 'mastered' is parallel with ''learned'' but we have ''I have'' in b/w ''BUT'' and 'ALSO'. Is this a wrong structure.

I got this question wrong while attempting the GMAT prep test. But cam back here to attempt it again without seeing the answer, and got it right. I realised the tiny mistake that I had made.

My approach:

1) Read the sentence
2) Understood that it was 'the systematic clearing of forests in the United States' that did 3 things
- (i) Created Farmland
- (ii) Gave customers inexpensive houses and furniture
- (iii) Caused erosion and deforestation

3) Reading the options


>> The first thing that stood out to me was the special parallelism trigger 'not only - but also' AND 'and'
>> 'Not only - but also' is correctly used as it incorporates the subject in the 'but it also' part
>> 'and' is creating a parallelism between 'create' and 'gave' - not the correct tenses - eliminated



>> 'Not only - but also' is NOT correctly used as it DOES NOT incorporates the subject in the 'but also' part
>> ''which' is modifying farmland but farmland did not give customers inexpensive houses!
>> 'create' and 'gave' again have the tense mismatch - too many errors - eliminated


>> "comma + ing" is a non-essential modifier so we can read the sentence without those modifiers and it should still make sense. Trying that :
The systematic clearing of forests in the United States, but also caused erosion and very quickly deforested whole regions. - does not make sense!
>> There is no contradiction to justify the 'but' - eliminated


>> 'created' and 'gave' maintains the correct tense in parallelism and is a necessary modifier hence justifies the 'but'
>> 'but it also' correctly incorporates the subject
>> Seems like the best option as of now, will keep it alive
>> the only option remaining after eliminating (E) -


>> missing 'also' in the parallelism trigger 'not only - but also' - eliminated

Confidently marked (D) and moved to the next question