recent years

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recent years

by thailandvc » Wed Sep 02, 2009 3:22 am
In recent years cattle breeders have increasingly used crossbreeding, in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics and partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor.

A) in part that their steers should acquire certain characteristics
(B) in part for the acquisition of certain characteristics in their steers
(C) partly because of their steers acquiring certain characteristics
(D) partly because certain characteristics should be acquired by their steers
(E) partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers

If I read this passage straight up, I would've picked E. Sounds clean and straightforward. However, in an effort to apply all the rules, I chose D because of parallelism. Here is my though process correct me please- why is D wrong/ why is my thinking wrong?

There are two parallelism going on here (I think):

1)Construction parallelism-
In D: partly "because certain characteristics"...parallels with the construction partly "because crossbreeding..." (parallel)
In E: partly "to acquire"...partly "because corssbreeding is..." (not parallel)

2) Voice parallelism-
In D: partly + passive voice...partly active voice (not parallel)
In E: partly + active voice ... partly active voice (parallel).







(If you are going to say cross out the "because crossbreeding" and look at the the parallel between "to acquire" and "to provide, then I have another problem for you that would counter that thought)

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by tom4lax » Wed Sep 02, 2009 1:39 pm
I would go with E on the basis of passive vs. active voice.