Vithal
The first English settlers to establish a permanent colony in America did it not at Plymouth but along the shore of the James River west of Chesapeake Bay.
(A) it not at Plymouth but
(B) so not at Plymouth but
(C) not at Plymouth but instead
(D) not at Plymouth but did so
(E) it not at Plymouth but rather
This question is based on Idiomatic Usage and Parallelism.
A pronoun can only take a noun as its antecedent. To refer to an action, the adverb ‘so’ is used. On this basis, we can rule out
Options A and C.
Option C lacks any reference to the action of settling, so this option can also be eliminated.
Between Options B and D, there is a difference in parallelism of correlative conjunctions. The appropriate pair
‘not-but’ is used in both the options. However, to maintain parallelism of correlative conjunctions, each of the pair of conjunctions must be followed by the same part of speech. For example, if ‘not’ is followed by a noun, so must ‘but’. In Option D, ‘not’ is followed by a preposition (at) and ‘but’ is followed by a verb (did) So,
Option D can be ruled out.
Option B maintains the parallelism. In this option ‘not’ is followed by a preposition (at) and ‘but’ is followed by a preposition (along’)
Therefore, B is the most appropriate option. Jayanthi Kumar.