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Difficulty: EasyParallel Structure

Arrange the sentence segments to construct a grammatically correct sentence that maintains parallel structure.

  1. 1The software development team was responsible
  2. 2not only for designing the database
  3. 3but also for testing the user interface.

Answer

The correct sequence is 'The software development team was responsible', followed by 'not only for designing the database', and ending with 'but also for testing the user interface.'
The correct sequence begins with the main clause 'The software development team was responsible', is followed by the first correlative element 'not only for designing the database', and concludes with the matching parallel element 'but also for testing the user interface.' This maintains parallel structure because both parts of the correlative conjunction ('not only' and 'but also') are followed by prepositional phrases starting with the preposition 'for' and a gerund ('designing' and 'testing').

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the main independent clause that introduces the subject and predicate of the sentence.
'The software development team was responsible'
A grammatically complete sentence must begin with an independent clause containing a subject and a verb before introducing parallel list items.
2
Locate the first part of the correlative conjunction structure and its grammatical form.
'not only for designing the database'
The phrase 'not only' introduces the first element of the correlative pair, which is formatted as a prepositional phrase with a gerund ('for designing').
3
Identify the second part of the correlative structure that matches the grammatical form of the first element.
'but also for testing the user interface.'
To maintain parallel structure, 'but also' must be followed by a prepositional phrase with a gerund ('for testing') that matches the structure of the first element.

Key Concept

Parallel structure requires that correlative conjunctions (like 'not only... but also') connect grammatically identical elements, such as parallel prepositional gerund phrases.
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Topics

Parallel Structure

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