harsh8686 wrote:
England was the birth place for laws restricting women from working during nights, restrictions based on the idea that women were not only weaker and more vulnerable to exploitation compared to men, but also lacked competence to make valid choices.
Ignore everything before
that. And ignore the word
that, too.
• Quick POESplit #1: Options A, B, and D are not parallel.
A) WERE +
NOT ONLY + X
BUT ALSO + LACKED + Y
B) WOMEN +
NOT ONLY + VERB
BUT ALSO + WOMEN + VERB
D) WOMEN +
NOT ONLY + VERB
BUT ALSO + WOMEN + VERB
Not parallel. Eliminate A, B, and D
Split #2: C contains a slight possibility of ambiguity
. . . women . . . were more vulnerable to exploitation than men→ were women more vulnerable to exploitation or to men?
→ who was more vulnerable to exploitation: women or men?
(C) contains possible ambiguity that (E) does not. Eliminate C.
The answer is EOVERVIEW: THE ISSUES• COMPARISONS: THAN. Ambiguous?This question is hard because a tiny detail separates C from E—and GMAC usually tolerates the possible problem with C.
So (1) remember that this question is not official, and (2) try to think as the question writers thought.
• In a strict sense, the comparison in B, C, and D could be ambiguous. I'll use the same example from my post above.
Men like soccer more than women.
Men like
soccer more than men like
women? OR
Men like soccer more than
women like soccer?
In option B, below, I spell out the similarly possible ambiguity in options B, C, and D.
• Parallelism and the idiom
Not only X but also YOne way to narrow the options down to C and E is to find parallelism errors in A, B, and D.
IDIOM: NOT ONLY X BUT ALSO Y - once inside, twice outside-- X and Y must be parallel
-- PLACEMENT*: a verb, noun, preposition, or other "crucial" word must be placed
--
once outside the "Not only X but Y" structure, or
--
twice inside that structure
How do we tell whether the words at issue are
inside or
outside the structure?
Find
not only in the sentence. That phrase marks the beginning of parallel structure.
The "root phrase" precedes
not only,
The || marks indicate where the idiom/structure begins and ends. (This structure, by the way, is called a coordinating conjunction.)
Correct: Dancers
are || not only artists but also athletes.|| (
are is once outside)
Correct: Dancers || not only
are artists but also
are athletes.|| (
are is twice inside)
Wrong: Dancers
are || not only artists but also
are athletes.|| (
are is once outside, once inside)
Wrong: Dancers || not only
are artists but also athletes.|| (
are is only once inside)
• So the three guiding principles are:(1)
Than signals comparison that must be clear and logical.
(2) In the idiomatic structure, X and Y must be parallel. Look at the words before and after
not only and
but also(3) one way to check parallelism: the word at issue must be placed
once outside or
twice inside the structure
Quote:
A) women were not only weaker and more vulnerable to exploitation compared to men [X], but also lacked competence to make valid choices. [Y]
•
compared to men is redundant.
Weaker and
more vulnerable are comparison words.
GMAC really dislikes "compared to" and a comparison word (e.g. weaker) in the same sentence.
• the verbs are parallel (
were and
lacked, simple past tense) but are placed incorrectly
--
Wrong: women
were || not only X, but also
lacked Y ||
once outside, once insideOr track the words that flank
not only and
but also as I did in the quick POE above.
The verb
lacked immediately follows
but also. The verb
were must follow
not only.But in option A the verb were comes before not only, where the other verb comes after
but also. Not parallel.
Eliminate A
Quote:
B) women not only were weaker, more vulnerable to exploitation than men [X], but also women lacked competence to make valid choices.[Y]
• this comparison has the potential to be ambiguous. Does it mean:
-- women were more vulnerable to exploitation than women were vulnerable to men? OR
-- women were more vulnerable to exploitation than men were vulnerable to exploitation?
• missing the word AND
-- that highlighted comma should be the word AND
• Not only X but also Y: not parallel
--
women violates parallelism. The word
women is once outside and once inside the structure.
In other words, now the
noun/subject is improperly placed.
women || not only were X, but also
women lacked Y || (
once outside, once inside)
Same idea as
once outside, twice inside— check flanking words, as I did above in the quick POE.
Women comes before
not only but comes after
but also.
Not parallel. Eliminate B.
Quote:
C) women not only were weaker and more vulnerable to exploitation than men [X], but also lacked competence to make valid choices. [Y]
• This option correctly places the verbs
were and
lacked. The parallel verbs are twice inside.
WOMEN:
NOT ONLY +
were + X
BUT ALSO +
lacked + Y
• BUT C contains the same comparison issue as that in B. Possible ambiguity.
[Compare to (E) in which that possibility does not exist.]
Eliminate C.
Quote:
D) women not only were weaker and more vulnerable to exploitation than men, but also they lacked competence to make valid choices.
• same comparison error as that in B. Possible ambiguity. [Compare to E.]
• same parallelism error (once outside, once inside) as B —except (C) misuses
they rather than
women.
• the subject is incorrectly placed once outside (women) and once inside (they) the structure.
-- Flanking words? Women comes before
not only but
they [substitute for "women] comes after
but also. Not parallel. Eliminate D.
Quote:
E) women not only were weaker and more vulnerable to exploitation by men [X], but also lacked competence to make valid choices. [Y]
• By POE, option E is the answer.
• both verbs
were and
lacked are inside the parallelism markers (Women not only WERE X, but also LACKED Y
• What about "women were weaker"? Weaker than whom?
-- the issue is not a decision point. Both C and E (the two best choices) contain the words
-- if the comparative noun is obvious, GMAC allows its omission (weaker
than men.
• this option is the best of five. Mark it and move on.
This question contains good examples of parallel and not-parallel constructions of the idiom
Not only X but also Y.
I would learn how to maintain parallelism when using this idiom; it is in the top-ten most frequently tested idioms.**
Option C gets the verb parallelism correct but the comparison might be ambiguous
Choose the option with no possibility of ambiguity.
That answer is E. Hope that helps.
Fahad222 and others:
*Option A does not determine intended meaning. I realize that this statement is contrary to what some people are taught.
The three experts below collectively possess more than forty years' of experience teaching the GMAT. They, too, say that there is nothing special about option A.
GMATNinja , HERE, Dmitry Farber, here, and Ron Purewal, HERE.
Option A usually does tell us the intended meaning, but that fact comes from our ability to determine intended meaning from the prompt, whose underlined portion, verbatim, is option A. Option A may happen to fit grammatically and rhetorically 20% of the time, but that fact does not mean that option A is the originally intended meaning. If need be, we should use all five options to determine meaning.
**I wrote about how to handle Not only X but also Y and parallelism in this post, here. The analysis is a bit more in depth than what you see here, and the question is good practice.
I see a lot of understandable confusion about how to ensure that this idiom is parallel.
You can see my other post and cement your understanding of parallelism issues in "not only . . . but also . . ." _________________
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01 Oct 2019, 18:30
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