Sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purpose

A) Sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, though they are a hardy houseplant.
Not only but also- incorrect
B) Sources of substances used not only for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants grow faster in the wild than they do indoors, though they are a hardy houseplants.
Not only but also- incorrect
C) As sources of substances used not only for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, although they are a hardy houseplants.
Not only but also- incorrect
D) Although a hardy houseplant, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when indoors, and they are sources of substances not only used for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements.
Incorrect and wordy
E) Although they are hardy houseplants, aloe vera plants in the wild grow faster than when indoors and are sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also food preservatives and dietary supplements.
Modifier error corrected. Less Wordy correct use of not only but also.

IMO-E
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Need help with the OA. Couldn't understand why B is the answer. I was pretty sure E is the answer.

B doesn't make sense here.

"though they are a hardy houseplants" doesn't have agreement with it's article "a" and "houseplants". In other words, you can't have "a houseplants".

there is no explanation for the right answer

Does "Sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements" count as an appositive in this sentence?

E is correct. OA is incorrect. E is excessively awkward, whereas E flows logically.

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E uses when although we are not referring to the actual time that's why it is incorrect. B is accurate because Not only - prepositional phrase + but also - prepositional phrase is an accurate construction.

I agree with this, only B does this correctly, but isn't "though they are a hardy houseplants" at the end wrong?

A quick POE from a non-native.


Sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, though they are a hardy houseplant.


A) Sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, though they are a hardy houseplant.

Issues: [used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives] this, used for as food preservatives, makes less sense to me.

B) Sources of substances used not only for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants grow faster in the wild than they do indoors, though they are a hardy houseplants.

Not found an immediate issue to eliminate.

C) As sources of substances used not only for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, although they are a hardy houseplants.

Not found an immediate issue to eliminate.

D) Although a hardy houseplant, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when indoors, and they are sources of substances not only used for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements.

Issue: "Although a hardy houseplant, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when indoors" - in a wrong formation of usage of ALTHOUGH

E) Although they are hardy houseplants, aloe vera plants in the wild grow faster than when indoors and are sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also food preservatives and dietary supplements.

Issue: "Although they are hardy houseplants, aloe vera plants in the wild grow faster than when indoors" - Again a wrong formation of usage of ALTHOUGH


B & C left

C) As sources of substances used not only for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, although they are a hardy houseplants.

Issue: in my sense, it is not idiomatic.

Left with B as the Answer.

No because the sentence is of the following structure: Modifier- Independent Clause - Subordinate Clause.
Hope it helps.

Here was my approach, not sure if it's right:

The split I did was "that" vs "no that"

Sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, though they are a hardy houseplant.

A) Sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, though they are a hardy houseplant.
The "that" restricts aloe vera plants to only those in the wild, so aloe vera plants that are in the wild are a hardy houseplant? How can a plant that is in the wild now be a houseplant now? Either the plant is in the wild or it's in the house. It can't be a plant that is in the wild and in the house.

B) Sources of substances used not only for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants grow faster in the wild than they do indoors, though they are a hardy houseplants.

C) As sources of substances used not only for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when they are indoors, although they are a hardy houseplants.
Same as A explanation.

D) Although a hardy houseplant, aloe vera plants that are in the wild grow faster than they do when indoors, and they are sources of substances not only used for medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also as food preservatives and dietary supplements.
Same as A, because the modifier "Although a hardy houseplant" modifies "aloe vera plants THAT are in the wild"

E) Although they are hardy houseplants, aloe vera plants in the wild grow faster than when indoors and are sources of substances used for not only medicinal and cosmetic purposes but also food preservatives and dietary supplements.

Now between B and E =>

E says "Although" which I generally of although as comparing a positive element to a related negative element or visa versa (comparing a negative element to a positive element). Here is says "Although they are hardy houseplants" (positive)... but sources used for medicinal/cosmetic purposes (positive). The although sounds weird here because it's two positive elements, so why are we using although?

So I thought the correct answer was B.

How can you have one houseplants though? The article "a" is used to modify "houseplants"

In my opinion, the quality of this question is very poor - it is definitely not worth trying to think about it too much. Please correct if I am wrong.

E is correct because in it there is correct idiom : for not only ...but also