himanshu0123
just to understand parallelism in A]
as a result of several improvements in blowing machinery AND because coal replaced charcoal as the fuel used in the smelting of iron ore.
we have an adverbial phrase(as a result of) made parallel to a clause (coal replaced charcoal)
Please guide.
"as a result of xxxx" and "because yyyy" both modify/describe/explain the action of the preceding clause. There's no choice that creates this type of construction with better parallelism, so, go with this one.
Quote:
(A) Over the course of the eighteenth century, output tripled
vs
(B) Over the course of the eighteenth century, a tripling was due to X and Y.
To resolve this split, use the usual combination of context and common sense to determine which words SHOULD have which relevant functions/relationships.
Here, you should concentrate on the modifier "over the course of the 18th century"—a modifier that's common to the two choices, but whose referent differs between them.
Ask yourself:
WHAT ••HAPPENED•• "over the course of the 18th century"? (...and please note that this modifier has to describe something that legitimately could have HAPPENED OVER A TIME PERIOD!)
A/ "Output tripled"
This is EXACTLY what
happened over the 18th century. (In other words, the output in 1799 was three times the output in 1700.)
B/ "The tripling was due to..."
This is NOT an
event that took place over a historical time period. Instead, this is a historical assertion that is factually either true or false—and its status as true or false is timeframe-independent (i.e., if this statement is historically accurate, then it will remain true forever).
A therefore makes sense while B is nonsense.