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Difficulty: HardParallel Structure

Fill in the blank in the sentence below with the correct form of the verb 'create' to ensure that the sentence maintains a parallel grammatical structure.

Answer:The board of directors decided not only to increase the annual research budget but also 【to create】 a new oversight committee to monitor expenditures.

Answer

to create
The correct answer is 'to create' because it matches the infinitive form of 'to increase' that directly follows the first part of the correlative conjunction ('not only'). Parallel structure requires that elements joined by 'not only... but also' have identical grammatical forms.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the correlative conjunction structure in the sentence.
The sentence uses the correlative conjunction pair 'not only... but also' to link two actions.
Parallel structure dictates that elements connected by correlative conjunctions must share the same grammatical form.
2
Analyze the grammatical structure of the first linked element.
The phrase following 'not only' is 'to increase the annual research budget', which is an infinitive phrase.
Establishing the structure of the first element dictates the grammatical requirement for the second element.
3
Format the verb 'create' to match the grammatical structure of the first element.
To parallel the infinitive 'to increase', the verb 'create' must be written in its infinitive form: 'to create'.
Using the infinitive 'to create' balances the sentence and satisfies the parallel structure rule.

Key Concept

Parallel Structure with Correlative Conjunctions
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Topics

Parallel Structure

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