Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus offers an examination not only of

______________
Edited. Thank you.

+1 for E.

A. an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

B. an examination not only about the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

C. not only an examination of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

D. not only an examination about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

E. not only an examination of the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, but --> Correct, Not only X, but also Y

Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus offers an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but also a skillfully navigated exploration of the major concerns of modernism.


A. an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

B. an examination not only about the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

C. not only an examination of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

D. not only an examination about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

E. not only an examination of the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, but

Answer E use correct parallelism, not only an examination of the......but also a skillfully navigated exploration of the...


Thanks,
GyM

Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus offers an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but also a skillfully navigated exploration of the major concerns of modernism.


A. an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

B. an examination not only about the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

C. not only an examination of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

D. not only an examination about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

E. not only an examination of the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, but

It uses idiom - not only X but also Y. And X & Y should be parallel.

And to solve this question we need to pay attention to non-underlined part of the question. It starts with a noun - a skillfully navigated exploration

So X should also start with a noun.

Y - a skillfully navigated exploration

X - an examination.........

Hence eliminate A & B.

Please notice the "and" at the end of choice. Eliminate C.

D is wordy. the use - about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form - is incorrect.
Also x,y and z together. It is an redundancy in play. Eliminate D.

Hence E is best of all.

Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus offers an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but also a skillfully navigated exploration of the major concerns of modernism.


A. an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but ALSO A SKILLFULLY NAVIGATED EXPLORATION - Parallelism error

B. an examination not only about the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, and also IDIOM : NOT ONLY.... BUT ALSO.... & parallelism error

C. not only an examination of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion in any art form, and --- IDIOM ERROR: NOT ONLY.... BUT ALSO....

D. not only an examination about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but
examination about the difficulty with reconciling... WRONG.

E. not only an examination of the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, but = CORRECTED ALL ABOVE STATED ERRORS. CORRECT ANSWER

Two errors that can get you to Correct answer..

1)idiom is NOT ONLY..... BUT ALSO...
C can be eliminated..
2) not only X ..... but also Y...
X and Y have to be PARALLEL..
Y here is non underlined portion and is a noun phrase, so X should also be a NOUN phrase..

Only E left

Is the usage of both "reconcile" and "together" redundant in a sentence?

Hi Can you help with the correct proposition used with the word examination?
Do we use examination of/about both?

in choice D, reconcile can not go with "together". reconcile somethings, reconcile somthing to something. we do not have reconcile together.

Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus offers an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but also a skillfully navigated exploration of the major concerns of modernism.

ALWAYS SAVE TIME BY ELIMINATING FIRST

Elimination 1
Since there is a clear "a" after also in non underlined portion, we cannot have a construction as in A and B.

Elimination 2
Idiomatic usage dictates "not only...... but also", Unlike that in C.

ELIMINATION 3
This gets tricky
Usually people pick E because of clarity and concision
BUT
Logically it follows that it is an examination of something, not an exam about something with something else (as in D)


A. an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but (ELIMINATION 1)

B. an examination not only about the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, and(ELIMINATION 1)

C. not only an examination of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion in any art form, and (ELIMINATION 2)

D. not only an examination about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but (ELIMINATION 3)

E. not only an examination of the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, but (ELIMINATION 3)

generis

Thanks for your awesome explanations regarding NOT ONLY, BUT ALSO here



Does it make sense to edit point (2) as:
prepositions, verbs, noun phrases and split verbs create the most problems.

is a big noun phrase in options C/D.
Also is GMAC very particular in COPYING the same preposition after/ before not only and but also ?
In this official q, the preposition ABOUT is not consistent with OF. And that's why one rejects D.
Also do you think together does not go too well with and in D?Is my approach correct?

I think that the deterministic error In D is redundancy. "Reconciling" and "together" in this context mean the same. I don't think that GMAT is particular about prepositions given that both are noun phrases.
Correct me if I am wrong generis hazelnut

The idiom under consideration here is ‘not only X… but also Y’

There is also the issue of parallelism. We can see that in Option A, it says ‘an examination not only of…’.
The correct placement of ‘not only’ is before the words ‘an examination’.

The correct option should read – not only an examination of…

Let’s scan the options now:

(A) an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

(B) an examination not only about the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

(C) not only an examination of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

(D) not only an examination about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

(E) not only an examination of the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, but

Eliminate Options A, B, C and D

Option E is the best option.

Hope this helps!

Confusion is around D and E

Look at the non underlined part "exploration of" , E is parallel

the terrible mistake in choice D is "reconcile together". we dont need "together " to go with "reconcile".

Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus offers an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but also a skillfully navigated exploration of the major concerns of modernism.


(A) an examination not only of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

The correct idiom is "not only ...but also", which this choice captures. It errs, however, because of the prepositional phrase that follows not only: 'of how difficult it is to reconcile' is not parallel with the noun that follows the 'but' in the idom: 'skillfully navigated exploration'

(B) an examination not only about the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, and X

Violates the proper idiom usage "not only...but also"

(C) not only an examination of how difficult it is to reconcile reason, will, and passion in any art form, and

Violates the proper idiom usage "not only...but also"

(D) not only an examination about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

-"examination of' is idiomatic
-'of' is preferred over 'with' in 'difficulty with'

(E) not only an examination of the difficulty of reconciling reason, will, and passion in any art form, but
Correct

(D) not only an examination about the difficulty with reconciling reason, will, and passion together in any art form, but

One of the word 'reconciling' or 'together' is redundant. So D is not correct