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Zorluk: OrtaParallel Structure

Before the completion of the transcontinental telegraph line in 1861, sending a message across North America took weeks by mail carrier. To build this new network, labor crews faced not only the daunting task of transporting thousands of heavy wooden poles across rugged mountain ranges but also __________.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  1. A
    to string copper wire over vast, arid plains.
  2. B
    stringing copper wire over vast, arid plains.
  3. the constant difficulty of stringing copper wire over vast, arid plains.Cevap
  4. D
    they had to string copper wire over vast, arid plains.

Cevap

the constant difficulty of stringing copper wire over vast, arid plains.
The sentence uses the correlative conjunction pair 'not only... but also...' to link two challenges faced by the labor crews. The first challenge is phrased as a noun phrase: 'the daunting task of transporting thousands of heavy wooden poles across rugged mountain ranges.' To maintain parallel structure, the second challenge must also be structured as a noun phrase. The option stating 'the constant difficulty of stringing copper wire over vast, arid plains' matches this structure perfectly by using a noun modified by an adjective and followed by a prepositional phrase starting with 'of'.

Adım Adım Çözüm

1
Identify the grammatical structure of the sentence.
The sentence contains the correlative conjunctions 'not only... but also...', which require parallel grammatical structures on either side.
Correlative conjunctions must link grammatically identical elements to maintain parallel structure.
2
Analyze the grammatical structure of the first element linked by 'not only'.
The phrase 'the daunting task of transporting...' is a noun phrase led by the noun 'task'.
Determining the grammatical category of the first element dictates the category needed for the second element.
3
Evaluate the choices to find the one that matches this noun phrase structure.
The phrase 'the constant difficulty of stringing...' is a noun phrase led by the noun 'difficulty', matching the pattern of the first element.
Selecting the matching noun phrase structure completes the parallel comparison in accordance with standard English conventions.

Anahtar Kavram

Parallel Structure
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