The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his

Question

The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically  sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly  from previous works.

(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved

(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but they were slowly evolved

OA is C.

OE:

Parallelism + Idiom

The construction  not....but  shows a contrast. The words following  not  must be parallel in construction to the words following  but . In the original sentence  not  is followed by a prepositional phrase ( in a flash of inspiration );  but  is followed by a verb ( evolved ). To make the two contrasting elements parallel,  not  should be followed by a verb rather than a phrase.

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

Hopefully, the “not… but” construction absolutely leaps off the page at you whenever you see it. It’s often treated as an idiom in GMAT test-prep books, but I think that’s a mistake: think of “not… but” phrases as strict demands for parallelism. Basically, the word “not” and the word “but” need to be followed by the same parts of speech (nouns, verbs, prepositions, modifiers, etc.) or else the sentence is wrong. (The same, of course, is true of “not only” and “but also”: whatever follows those two phrases need to be parallel to each other.) And in this case, we have “not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly.” “Not” is followed by a prepositional phrase, and “but” is followed by a verb. That’s unambiguously wrong, so (A) is gone. (B) has almost exactly the same error as (A): “not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved .” “Not” is followed by a preposition, “but” is still followed by a verb. That’s still wrong. (B) is out. This one seems to work! “Did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly…” Cool, the “not” and “but” are both followed by verbs, and they’re both in the past tense. That makes sense: they both happened in the past, and there’s no reason why those two actions should be in different tenses. We can keep (C). Now we get into some subtle stuff about verb tense and meaning. (And we did a whole YouTube webinar on verb tense and meaning, so check this out if you’re interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxANHcxwbeM.) The past perfect tense (“had slowly evolved”) only makes sense if it describes an action that happened in the distant past, before some other “time marker” – usually a later action in simple past tense. Superficially, we’re OK here: “had slowly evolved” is accompanied by the simple past action “did not spring to life.” But wait: the timeline is nonsense. This is literally saying that Edison’s inventions first “had evolved slowly” and THEN they “did not spring to life.” Huh? It makes much more sense to just use the simple past for both actions here. So (D) can be eliminated. And now we’re back to a nice, straightforward parallelism error: “not” is followed by the verb “spring”, while the “but” is followed by “they were slowly evolved” – a clause that begins with a noun. Those things aren’t parallel, so (E) is gone, and (C) is our answer.

ChrisLele · Answer

This question tests parallelism. Indeed most of the wrong answers can be eliminated simply because of lack of parallelism (see below).

The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly from previous works.

(A) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

'Not in a Noun Phrase but in a Noun Phrase' is violated by the use of the verb 'evolved.'

(B) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

Same problem as in (A), but this time because of 'were slowly evolved.'

(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

'Did not 'Verb Phrase + Prepositional Phrase but 'Verb Phrase + PP' is maintained here. The Answer.

(D) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved

The use of past perfect, 'had...evolved' is unnecessary.

(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

Use of the passive construction, 'were slowly evolved' invalidates this answer choice.

Hope that helps

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Tenses + Parallelism + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• Semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; comma cannot be used to join two independent clauses.
• The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past. 
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

A:  This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between "in a flash of inspiration" and "evolved slowly from previous works"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("but" in this sentence) must be parallel.

B:  This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between "in a flash of inspiration" and "were slowly evolved from previous works"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("but" in this sentence) must be parallel. Further, Option B uses the passive voice construction "were slowly evolved", rendering it awkward and needlessly wordy.

C:   Correct.  This answer choice maintains parallelism between "spring to life in a flash of inspiration" and evolved slowly from previous works". Further, Option C correctly uses the simple past tense verb "evolved" to refer ot an event that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option C is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

D:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had evolved" to refer to an event that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".

E:  This answer choice incorrectly uses conjunction ("but" in this sentence) to join the independent clauses "his inventions did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration" and "they were slowly evolved from previous works"; please remember, semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses. Further, Option E uses the passive voice construction "they were slowly evolved", rendering it awkward and needlessly wordy.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZj-SubJwsM

To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFGxC37OOGU

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Ankit04041987 · Answer

d)did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but had slowly evolved

what is wrong with option d

daagh · Answer

In D, the use of past perfect  'had evolved ' to describe the nature of a phenomenon is erroneous. The springing and evolving are concurrent happenings and so there is no need to sequence them as one before the other. That is why D loses

egmat · Answer

(C) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly

Notice that "did" appears before "spring". Hence we cannot write "sprang" because we cannot write two past tenses in same sentence. Note that "did not spring" = "sprang" which is parallel to past tense "evolved". The structure of the sentence is such that "spring" and "evolved" cannot be identically parallel. But both the verb tenses are in simple past tense. And that is why they are parallel.

Hence, it is not always necessary that all the entities in a list must be identically parallel. They should be made identically parallel only when it is possible to do so. In an e-gmat course concept namely Parallelism - Helpful Tips, we discuss how far entities can be parallel in the list.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

Shraddha

Sachin9 · Answer

(E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

Use of the passive construction, 'were slowly evolved' invalidates this answer choice.

Hi Chris,
You mention the above as the reason why E is wrong. 
So, Do we need the voices ( passive/active ) to be parallel in a x but y structure?

Regards,
Sach

egmat · Answer

Hi Sachin,

In the construction “not X but Y”, X and Y should be parallel, but it is not necessary for the voices to be the same if the context demands so. For example:

The beggars did not get any money but were helped in other ways.

In this sentence, “did not get” is in active voice but “were helped” is in passive. It is so because here both the entities cannot be identically parallel. If we make both the voice active, the meaning will be violated.

However, this is not the case with the OG question. Choice E reads:

E) did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but were slowly evolved

In this choice we can make both the entities identically parallel without violating the meaning of the sentence. We can easily say:

Did not spring to life in a flash of inspiration but slowly evolved…

The takeaway is that we must keep the entities as parallel as possible. When we can have identically parallel entities to convey the intended logical meaning, we must keep them that way. The list can be made non-identical only if the logical meaning cannot be conveyed by making the entities absolutely parallel.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

Thanks. Shraddha

KyleWiddison · Answer

I'm no help on your question 2, but I will respond to your first question about 'did'.

This is a great meaning question around the difference between "sprang to life not in a flash" and "did not spring to life in a flash". The intent of the sentence is to show that Edison's inventions were not the result of a flash of inspiration but rather were the result of an evolutionary process. By saying his inventions "sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration but evolved slowly" you are actually setting up a contradictory statement because you are saying his inventions sprang to life through evolution, but evolution is slow and certainly does not "spring to life". By changing the statement to read "his inventions did not spring to life but evolved slowly" you get the proper meaning that this was not a quick, 'spinging' action but rather a slow evolutionary process.

Does that help?

KW

EducationAisle · Answer

You mention that you picked A because verbs were in past tense and parallel. For one thing, tense does not need to be same between various parts of the sentence. For example:

Buddha has studied hard for GMAT and will surely score well on GMAT.

This is a valid sentence, though the tenses are not  same  (first part uses  present perfect  and second part uses  simple future ).

Nevertheless, even going by your thought process, you mention that both verbs are parallel. I am assuming you mean that  sprang  and  evolved  are parallel in A. So, let us  dissect  the sentence at these verbs:

The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically:

(a) sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration 
 BUT
 (b) evolved slowly from previous works.

So, the  mini-sentences  we have here are:

(a) The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically sprang to life not in a flash of inspiration
(b) The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his inventions typically evolved slowly from previous works.

Hopefully you see the issue with (a). We would  not  say:

He prepared for GMAT not with a hope of scoring 650.

We would rather say:

He did not prepare for GMAT with a hope of scoring 650.

282552 · Answer

Hey Kyle 
Can you please explain why option E is wrong.

egmat · Answer

Hi, I see that there is still some confusion regarding this choice. Shraddha has done a good analysis of the errors in choice E in her post here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-voluminous-personal-papers-of-thomas-alva-edison-reveal-81030-20.html#p1148384 However, to solidify your understanding of the intended meaning of the author and the errors in various choices for this question, please refer to our detailed video solution of this question here: https://e-gmat.com/blogs/?cat=45&paged=11

Regards, Neeti.

merajul · Answer

Can any one explain why ansewr choice 'D' is incorrect ??? I was confused between C & D . Anyway chose D.

abhimahna · Answer

D is incorrect because it uses "had", which is unnecessary.

As per the meaning of the sentence, it says Papers revealed that his inventions evolved slowly rather than in a flash of inspiration.

So, We don't need any "had" here. Also, spring in a flash and evolved slowly should be in the same tense form. But in D, it is not so.

GMATNinja · Answer

Correct... the past perfect tense ("had evolved") cannot be used because we do not have two past actions occurring at different times.

ywp033402 · Answer

Hi, I understand that there is a need for parallelism but I do not understand how some inventions can 'evolve slowly' by themselves? I thought evolve is like animals evolving but inventions are not creatures, they need to be created and improved on by someone else? Am I misunderstanding something?

Thanks!

Thanks!

daagh · Answer

@Ywp

'Evolve' simply means to transform for better either by itself or by somebody's effort. So many inanimate things evolve. For example, we say the volcanoes have evolved slowly over time. However, did anyone evolve them? They evolved by themselves.

How do inventions evolve by themselves? When the field is ripe with a lot of designs, the prior inventions open up a ready synergy for many inventors to create more and unique devices. That is the reason that we have so many new inventions springing up especially in scientific fields. This subtle momentum is the evolution of inventions.

happypuppy · Answer

Is the construction "  not sprang  to life in a flash of inspiration  but evolved  slowly" correct?

Here, if the stem A was like the above statement "not sprang... but evolved", would that be correct usage?

GMATNinja · Answer

Generally, we're much better off evaluating official options than creating our own constructions, but for what it's worth, I can't think of any scenario in which "not sprang" would work.

You could write, "Tim's shriveled moribund body  sprang  to life," and you could write "Tim's shriveled moribund body  did not spring  to life." But "Tim's shriveled moribund body not sprang?" Nah.

But again, it's not worth devoting much brain space to this.

I hope that helps a bit!

The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his

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The voluminous personal papers of Thomas Alva Edison reveal that his

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