While Hollywood makes films primarily for entertainment, the motion pi

Only C maintains the correct idiom usage: not to entertain, but to allow

While Hollywood makes films primarily for entertainment, the motion picture was not first developed to entertain, but it was to allow detailed analysis of animal motion.

A. was not first developed to entertain, but it was --> "not ... but" construction. not parallel

B. was developed not first to entertain, but it was --> not parallel

C. was first developed not to entertain, but --> correct

D. did not first develop for entertainment, but --> not parallel

E. did not first develop for entertainment, but it was --> not parallel

Answer C. Not X But Y parallelism is correct.


Thanks,
GyM

IMO it is C by parallelism to entertain,to...

Option C as the perfect parallelism structure "NOT X BUT Y"
Rest all Options are violating parallelism

The OG tells that there is no clear antecedent to the pronoun it in this question. But I think that it clearly refers to motion picture.

something about " allow"
I am allowed to speak
if I am permited to do something, the above pattern is fit.
but if you allow, not were allow, some action done by other persons which can or cant mentioned, we say
I allow speaking English in this country.
speaking is not done by I. it done by other persons not mentioned in the sentence.

our choice C mean
it allow an analysis.
it allow an action of analysis done by someone else.

these two patterns can confuse us when we are in the test room.

While Hollywood makes films primarily for entertainment, the motion picture was not first developed to entertain, but it was to allow detailed analysis of animal motion.

Subject verb pair: the motion picture, was developed
The question is testing parallelism. Not X but Y.
X: first developed to entertain
Y: it was to allow detailed analysis of animal motion.

The way sentence is written, X and Y are not parallel.
Here X is a phrase, Y is an entire clause.

A. was not first developed to entertain, but it was

B. was developed not first to entertain, but it was

options A and B out.

C follows parallel structure Not to entertain but to allow detailed analysis of animal motion. X and Y are phrases.


C. was first developed not to entertain, but

D. did not first develop for entertainment, but - option D This is RUN ON sentence. Why? Main subject verb pair missing.

E. did not first develop for entertainment, but it was verb missing for subject the motion picture

While Hollywood makes films primarily for entertainment, the motion picture was not first developed to entertain, but it was to allow detailed analysis of animal motion.
(A) was not first developed to entertain, but it was
..but it(motion picture) was to allow..Nonsense
actual meaning: it was developed to allow..
(B) was developed not first to entertain, but it was
same as A
(C) was first developed not to entertain, but
parallelism: not to entertain but to .. : CORRECT
(D) did not first develop for entertainment, but
The meaning should be : the motion picture was developed...
(E) did not first develop for entertainment, but it was
Same as D

When I read this question, my mind first went to the "...,but ..."
I see this as the OG sentence was to have 2 independent clauses connected by a conjunction. Why is this structural rule disregarded for "not X but Y" ?? To me, the idiom should not have a comma in it. But since there are no options sans comma, it supports the idea of 2 independent clauses being joined by ",but"

Where did I go wrong?

Similar question GMATNinja egmat @

Does comma + FANBOYS require an independent clause. Is comma in the OA even required

Hello akmech,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, yes; if "comma + FANBOYS" is used to link two clauses, they must both be independent clauses.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

To answer your query, yes; if "comma + FANBOYS" is used to link two clauses, they must both be independent clauses.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team[/quote]

ExpertsGlobal5

I hope that you are having a wonderful week!

I have a similar question to others on the form that I am still left a bit confused on. You confirmed that you always need a comma before FANBOYS for connecting two independent clauses.

However, why is the comma needed in the correct answer? Is it just stylistic? I realize that you should NOT focus on comma usage on the GMAT in isolation, but this really threw me off, as I was looking for a FANBOYS and complete independent clause instead of Choice B.

Hey woohoo921

Happy to help.

Yes, it is true that "when two ICs are connected with FANBOYS, the conjunction must be preceded by a comma". But, this does NOT mean that every time we see a "Comma + FANBOYS", it has to be followed by an IC. FANBOYS also connect a list of phrases and even a list of words. And, thanks to the Oxford Comma Rule, you will find "comma + FANBOYS" right before the last entity in every list of three or more words, phrases, or clauses. For example:

a. I play cricket, football, and basketball.

So, should we expect an IC after ", and"? No, right?



Yes, the use of the comma in choice C can be called purely stylistic. Choice C contains the correlative connector "not (x) but (y)". Now, we could choose to separate the not-phrase from the but-phrase with a comma if each phrase is long enough or if we wish demarcate the end of the not-phrase.


There are much worse errors in the other choices to be worrying about the comma in choice C. So, the second take-away from this question is to learn to prioritize errors in GMAT SC. There are some errors that are more deterministic than others. Try to create a mental note of that hierarchy.


I hope this helps improve your understanding.

Happy Learning!


Abhishek

ExpertsGlobal5

I hope that you are having a wonderful week!

I have a similar question to others on the form that I am still left a bit confused on. You confirmed that you always need a comma before FANBOYS for connecting two independent clauses.

However, why is the comma needed in the correct answer? Is it just stylistic? I realize that you should NOT focus on comma usage on the GMAT in isolation, but this really threw me off, as I was looking for a FANBOYS and complete independent clause instead of Choice B.[/quote]

Hello woohoo921,

We hope this finds you well.

We just wanted to chime in to confirm that, as egmat has written above, the comma is purely stylistic in Option C.

We can consider this usage part of the same category of flaws that redundancy belongs to - flaws that make the answer choice slightly worse but are not deal breakers or grammatically incorrect.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

In some cases, however, the comma may be omitted, for example, when two independent sentences are very short and closely related. This is more of a stylistic choice that depends on the context. In the answer you gave, the comma in option C is not required for grammatical reasons, but is used for stylistic reasons. When I stop thinking, I realize that I need to distract myself, to each his own, but I am perfectly relaxed by these click girls, and undressing at that) Its absence does not necessarily make the sentence wrong, but its presence can help with clarity and readability, especially if the independent clauses are a bit longer.