Quote:
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
(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
(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
(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
(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
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
Quote:
(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
>> 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

Quote:
(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 - 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

Quote:
(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
>> "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

Quote:
(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
>> '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) -
Quote:
(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
>> missing 'also' in the parallelism trigger 'not only - but also' - eliminated
Confidently marked (D) and moved to the next question