Like the Carroll Street Bridges retractable design that met the

Correct answer: E

ABCD: No conjugated verb in the first clause
ABC: "[Just] like ... so" is not idiomatic. "Just as ... so" is the proper construction.
BCD: "Demanding" is not parallel with "met the demands."
BD: Improper comparison between "designing ..." and "the Broadway Bridge's vertical lift design."

Official Explanation:

Like the Carroll Street Bridge’s retractable design that met the demands of street and river traffic in Brooklyn, so the Broadway Bridge’s vertical lift design met the demands of street and river traffic in Manhattan.

A. Like the Carroll Street Bridge’s retractable design that met the demands of
B. Like designing the Carroll Street Bridge to be retractable to meet demanding
C. Just like the Carroll Street Bridge’s retractable design that met the demanding
D. Just as designing the Carroll Street Bridge’s to be retractable to meet demanding
E. Just as the Carroll Street Bridge’s retractable design met the demands of


A review of our answer options reveals that we need to choose between starting the sentence with “like” or with “just as/just like,” and this tells us this sentence most likely will compare two things. We must also choose between a couple of different forms for the words “met” and “demand.”

Many times comparative phrases are idiomatic, so let’s look at the portion of the sentence that isn’t underlined to see how the second portion of the comparison is introduced. The second clause begins with “so.” The idiom for a comparison using “like” is “Like X, Y.” “So” or another conjunction is not used in this idiom. However, the idiom for a comparison using “as” is “as X, so Y.” Since the “so” is not underlined, then we must use the “As/just as X, so Y” idiom structure. Options A, B, and C cannot be the correct answers because they are not idiomatic.

Option D begins “just as designing,” but the rest of the comparison says “so the Broadway Bridge.” This means the sentence is trying to compare the designing of one bridge with another actual bridge. Comparison must be of like items. Additionally, in the non-underlined portion of the sentence the phrase “the demands of” is used, and Option D uses “to meet demanding.” This is not parallel, and “demanding” doesn’t make complete sense as a modifier of traffic. Option D also cannot be the best answer.

Option E compares a bridge with a bridge and using “the demands of” makes it parallel with the rest of the sentence. Option E is the best answer.

Great job, mykrasovski! You cracked the code by figuring out the idiom we're working with and focusing on parallelism!

Well done! Kudos to you!

Well done, suchithra! You figured out one of the tricks to answering this question: knowing when to use "like" vs. "as" in a comparison! Great job focusing the rest of your explanation on parallelism!

Kudos to you!

Hi EMPOWERgmatVerbal,

I understand option E is correct because it follows the correct idiom As X, So Y.

But if SO was not there in the second clause, would option A been correct?
Like the Carroll Street Bridge’s retractable design that met the demands of street and river traffic in Brooklyn, the Broadway Bridge’s vertical lift design met the demands of street and river traffic in Manhattan.

We would have been comparing the two designs

Thanks for the question Sthk94!

This mainly has to do with using "like" vs. "as" in comparisons. It's better to use "as" here because we're comparing two bridges and their ability to meet demands - not just the two bridges in general. Since the comparison is focused on two clauses, rather than just two nouns, it's better to use "as."

Now, that's not to say that native English speakers will always get this right! We aren't the best at using like/as correctly in everyday speech or writing. You could certainly use "like" here (as long as it doesn't contain the "so" you mentioned), and most people wouldn't notice, but for the GMAT, it's still technically wrong.

We hope that helps!

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