Last visit was: 20 Nov 2025, 02:17 It is currently 20 Nov 2025, 02:17
Home
GMAT
Messages
Tests
Schools
Events
Rewards
Chat
My Profile
Close
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.

Customized
for You

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History

Track
Your Progress

every week, we’ll send you an estimated GMAT score based on your performance

Practice
Pays

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Go to My Error Log Learn more
Close
Request Expert Reply
Confirm Cancel
Back to Forum
Create Topic
avatar
anandnat
avatar
Joined: 10 Jun 2010
Last visit: 01 Oct 2010
Posts: 31
Own Kudos:
131
 [8]
Given Kudos: 2
Posts: 31
Kudos: 131
 [8]
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 04 Jul 2010, 03:14
2
Kudos
Add Kudos
6
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
00:00
Start Timer
Pause Timer
Resume Timer
Show Answer
Hide
Show
History
D
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

Difficulty:

15% (low)

Question Stats:

74% (00:53) correct 26% (00:54) wrong based on 387 sessions

History

Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely not only saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn.


A. saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn

B. saves water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn

C. saves water, but the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured

D. save water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn

E. save water, but also the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured
ShowHide Answer
Official Answer
D
Most Helpful Reply
User avatar
KyleWiddison
User avatar
Manhattan Prep Instructor
Joined: 30 Apr 2012
Last visit: 06 Jul 2016
Posts: 781
Own Kudos:
2,684
 [7]
Given Kudos: 5
Expert
Expert reply
Posts: 781
Kudos: 2,684
 [7]
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 29 May 2013, 22:16
7
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
madzstar
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely not only saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn.

A. saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn.
B. saves water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn
C. saves water, but the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured
D. save water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn
E. save water, but also the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured

The answer here is just APPAULING!
Show more

OK, let me see if I can explain this for you. There are a few key issues at play on this question. First you have the "not only..., but also" phrasing. When you use "not only" you need "but also" to complete the phrase, so A & C are eliminated.

Second you have to determine the proper Subject/Verb agreement (the saves/save split at the beginning). Your subject is the combination of noun phrases - "Managing your irrigation system well" (one 'thing') and "watering your grass wisely" (another 'thing'). The word 'and' is very powerful and it creates a compound, or plural, subject. The plural subject requires the plural form of the verb, so we want 'save' (no 's' on the plural form of the verb) - eliminate B.

We're left with D & E, and here comes parallelism to finish it off. When we say 'not only SAVE water', we are going to need a verb (HELP) after 'but also' to maintain parallelism - eliminate E. That leaves us with answer choice D.

Does this help? Do you have other questions?

KW
General Discussion
User avatar
saikarthikreddy
User avatar
Joined: 19 Apr 2011
Last visit: 14 Feb 2022
Posts: 128
Own Kudos:
1,037
Given Kudos: 53
Concentration: Finance,Entrepreneurship,General Management
Schools: Carlson '16 (I) Kelley '16 (I) Tuck '16 (D) Darden '24 (II)
GMAT 1: 720 Q49 V38
GRE 1: Q167 V167
Posts: 128
Kudos: 1,037
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 17 Feb 2012, 04:54
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
The subject phrase here must be singular Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely ,but none of the option take it to be singular .The option D which is wrong takes it to be plural .
User avatar
Chembeti
User avatar
Joined: 25 Nov 2011
Last visit: 26 Jun 2012
Posts: 123
Own Kudos:
1,019
Given Kudos: 20
Location: India
Concentration: Technology, General Management
GPA: 3.95
WE:Information Technology (Computer Software)
Posts: 123
Kudos: 1,019
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 20 Feb 2012, 17:06
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
saikarthikreddy
The subject phrase here must be singular Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely ,but none of the option take it to be singular .The option D which is wrong takes it to be plural .
Show more

The key to identify a subject phrase as singular or plural based on how the individual nouns/items in the phrase are connected with rest of the sentence.

1) If separating them makes sense, then they have to be considered two different nouns and hence verb goes into plural

2) If separating them does not make sense, then the verb has to be singular
For e.g,.

--> My mentor and role model is my mother. (I am talking about my mother, but not mentor and role model. Logically I can say my mentor is my mother and my role model is my mother, but does it sound right? To emphasize a fact probably you can say my mentor is my mother and my role model also is my mother)

--> Burger and coke is my all time favorite lunch (burger and coke are independently two different items; but what i am talking about is the lunch not those individual items)

Coming to the question, we can separate those statements and they both are independently valid statements and hence we need to use plural verb.

D is the right answer
User avatar
MichaelS
User avatar
Manhattan Prep Instructor
Joined: 06 Sep 2011
Last visit: 16 Aug 2014
Posts: 49
Own Kudos:
841
 [1]
Given Kudos: 2
GRE 1: Q800 V800
Expert
Expert reply
GRE 1: Q800 V800
Posts: 49
Kudos: 841
 [1]
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 20 Feb 2012, 21:51
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Couple of quick points:

(1) Not only...but also.... is the usual idiom, but not only...but.... has appeared in some correct answers on real GMATs. This is a good question, but I doubt it would quite pass muster as a real GMAT SC question.

(2) Although Chembeti makes an interesting point about standard usage, I'm not sure it's relevant to the GMAT. As far as I can recall, whenever and joins to nouns in a GMAT SC, it creates a plural compound noun.
User avatar
KyleWiddison
User avatar
Manhattan Prep Instructor
Joined: 30 Apr 2012
Last visit: 06 Jul 2016
Posts: 781
Own Kudos:
2,684
 [2]
Given Kudos: 5
Expert
Expert reply
Posts: 781
Kudos: 2,684
 [2]
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 30 May 2013, 22:42
2
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Bluelagoon
KyleWiddison
madzstar
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely not only saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn.

A. saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn.
B. saves water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn
C. saves water, but the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured
D. save water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn
E. save water, but also the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured

The answer here is just APPAULING!

//
Kyle i have seen answers with not only and but. Do you think We can use this argument here ?

Show more

Great question. In the case of this sentence, answer choices A & C (missing 'also') have a grammatical error with the singular verb 'saves', so the question don't really make us choose between 'but also' or 'but'. It's probably best to say that 'not only X, but also Y' is preferred but 'not only X, but Y' is acceptable. When in doubt, look back to rock solid grammar rules like subject/verb agreement.

KW
User avatar
blueseas
User avatar
Current Student
Joined: 14 Dec 2012
Last visit: 15 Jan 2019
Posts: 577
Own Kudos:
4,510
 [1]
Given Kudos: 197
Location: India
Concentration: General Management, Operations
Schools: PGDM (GM) '15 (A)
GMAT 1: 700 Q50 V34
GPA: 3.6
Schools: PGDM (GM) '15 (A)
GMAT 1: 700 Q50 V34
Posts: 577
Kudos: 4,510
 [1]
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 15 Aug 2013, 03:13
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
daisyhill1
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely not only saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn.

a) saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn
b) saves water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn
c) saves water, but the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured
d) save water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn
e) save water, but also the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured

In tha above Doesnt the correct ans seem awkward? Somehow "saves water but helps" sounds better? Can any expert explain this ans..
Show more

SOME THEORIES:
1) If two nouns are connected by AND then the resultant subject is compounded hence plural and thats why it needs a plural verb.
2)correct idiom is NOT ONLY X,...BUT ALSO Y...==>X AND Y SHOULD BE PARALLEL.

In this question two nouns PHRASE i.e
1)irrigation system well and 2) watering your grass wisely
they are connected by AND hence needs a plural verb.

basing this we can eliminate option A/B/C ..because they contain singular verbs SAVES

now between D AND E
IN E SAVE WATER....is not parallel to the success of.....

hence correct option D

HOPE IT HELPS
User avatar
BeckyRobinsonTPR
User avatar
Princeton Review Representative
Joined: 17 Jun 2013
Last visit: 19 May 2014
Posts: 147
Own Kudos:
1,010
 [1]
Posts: 147
Kudos: 1,010
 [1]
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 15 Aug 2013, 09:36
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
This question relies on the conjunction not only ... but also. The construction is awkward but grammatically correct and is often tested because of this fact. Once you Eliminate A and C for an incorrect conjunction then you need parallelism to surround that conjunction - save and help must be in the same form - they must be either saves and helps or save and help
daisyhill1
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely not only saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn.

a) saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn
b) saves water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn
c) saves water, but the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured
d) save water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn
e) save water, but also [color=#ff0000]the success [/color]of your lawn is more helpfully ensured

In tha above Doesnt the correct ans seem awkward? Somehow "saves water but helps" sounds better? Can any expert explain this ans..
Show more
avatar
abuc0112
avatar
Joined: 18 Jun 2010
Last visit: 01 Sep 2022
Posts: 83
Own Kudos:
88
Given Kudos: 28
Posts: 83
Kudos: 88
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 14 Sep 2021, 09:31
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
My attempt
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely not only saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn.

The subject is: Managing your irrigation And watering your grass wisely > the and makes the subject plural, so we need a plural verb.
we can eliminate choices A, B, C
We are left with D, E

A. saves water, but helps to ensure the success of your lawn s/v error

B. saves water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn s/v error

C. saves water, but the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured s/v error

D. save water, but also help to ensure the success of your lawn this is my answer

E. save water, but also the success of your lawn is more helpfully ensured lacks parallelism. what come before the not only is not parallel to what comes after but also
avatar
shalin23
avatar
Joined: 27 Aug 2021
Last visit: 21 Jan 2022
Posts: 11
Given Kudos: 27
Location: India
Posts: 11
Kudos: 0
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 23 Sep 2021, 23:57
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
I have a doubt:

I thought the subject as: singular AND singular, since irrigation system and grass are singular in nature.

Thats why I choose option B. can someone explain this to me?
User avatar
VerbalBot
User avatar
Non-Human User
Joined: 01 Oct 2013
Last visit: 04 Jan 2021
Posts: 18,832
Own Kudos:
986
Posts: 18,832
Kudos: 986
Managing your irrigation system well and watering your grass wisely no 18 Sep 2023, 09:56
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.
Moderators:
GMATNinja
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
7443 posts
GMATNinjaTwo
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
231 posts
miag
189 posts