ruturajp wrote:
The survival of coral colonies, which are composed of innumerable tiny polyps living in a symbiotic relationship with brilliantly colored algae, are being threatened, experts say, not only by pollutants like agricultural runoff, oil sticks, and trash, but also by dropped anchors, probing drivers, and global warming.
A. are being threatened, experts say, not only by pollutants like
B. are being threatened, experts say, by not only pollutants such as
C. is not only being threatened, experts say, by pollutants such as
D. is not only being threatened, experts say, by pollutants like
E. is being threatened, experts say, not only by pollutants such as
Here's how to answer this question in <30 seconds.
Step 1) Recognize that the beginning of the underlined stuff says "are" - immediately you know this is testing you on subject-verb agreement. What's the subject?
Go back and realize the subject is: "the survival of X" - so it's SINGULAR - which means we need IS instead of ARE.
That narrows the question down to (C), (D), and (E).
Step 2) What are the differences between (C), (D), and (E)?
Well, you recognize the common sentence structure "not only..but also" - and the difference lies in the positioning of where "not only" belongs.
Does it belong in the beginning like in (C) and (D) or does it belong towards the end as in (E)?
Well, in order to know what you're comparing in "not only X but also Y" - you need to know what X and Y are.
Is the sentence trying to say the survival is not only being THREATENED but it's also being [verb]?
Or is the sentence trying to say that the survival is being threatened not only by X, but it's also being threatened by Y?
Clearly, the sentence is trying to say that the survival is being threatened not only by X, but it's also being threatened by Y.
So we need the word "not only" to be positioned AFTER the word "being threatened" - not before as in (C) and (D).
Step 3) As long as you understand that in this case X is pollutants, and Y is a list of more pollutants, then you know that the phrase "not only" belongs immediately before the list of pollutants but AFTER the word threatened.
That way, we are able to quickly read the sentence and narrow it down to (C), (D), and (E).
We recognized the differences between these answer choices and found that the position of the "not only" phrase needs to be in the way that (E) has it.
So we choose (E) as our final answer and move on.
Hope that helps!