GMAT 오답노트: Sentence Correction : Parallallism

In his earlier poems, William Butler Yeats often used mythical imagery, in part so his poems reflected Ireland's colorful lore and legends and partly because his ideas were too controversial to express outright.

		in part so his poems reflected Ireland's colorful lore and legends
		in part because of the reflection of Ireland's colorful lore and legends
		partly because of the colorful lore and legends of Ireland
		partly so that colorful lore and legends of Ireland could be reflected
		partly to reflect Ireland's colorful lore and legends

Read the Original Sentence Carefully, Looking for Errors:

The two reasons that Yeats used mythical imagery should be stated in as grammatically Parallel a fashion as possible. In the non-underlined part of the sentence we see the phrase begins with partly. Since we cannot correct the non-underlined part of the sentence, we will need to look for choices that start with the parallel "partly."

Scan and Group the Answer Choices:

Here we have two groups of answers. The first group starts with in part, which we have determined is not correct. Eliminate (A) and (B). Let’s analyze our remaining answers choices of (C), (D) and (E).

Eliminate Choices Until Only One Remains:

Answer Choice (E) is correct because it is expressed succinctly, in an active voice, and uses the word “partly” in both instances.

Choice (C) makes the change to “partly,” which is correct, but now the lore and legends are forcing Yeats’ use of imagery. Answer (D) uses the passive voice, which is rarely correct on the GMAT, and certainly not when there is an acceptable version in active voice, as we have with Answer Choice (E).

Make sure to review the answer choice by reading it back into the sentence and confirming it makes sense.