* 73.Evolutionary psychology holds that the human mind...

[saintjingjing]

the parallelism in (a) seems ok, if a bit uglier than that in (b).

the thing that's most wrong about choice (a) is the phrase "developed as a way of solving". this is not correct -- if taken literally, this phrase indicates that the development of these mechanisms -- in other words, not the mechanisms themselves -- was the way of solving problems. that's not a reasonable meaning.

en, I am confused again, initially, ron says that not... but is not parallel, because but in A and B belongs to structure 2: "X but Y"
. But later, Ron says parallelism is correct. can anyone tell me in A/B not... but is correct or wrong? and why ? I guess may be not.. but instead.. do nor require absolute parallelisim.... need help

thanks

[bolopaneer]

sorry i may look lame here but it took c just because i read in idioms that instead comes with "of" and only at the ends it can come without "of". so i eleminated 1 and 2... please throw some lime light on this misconception

[RonPurewal]

sorry i may look lame here but it took c just because i read in idioms that instead comes with "of" and only at the ends it can come without "of". so i eleminated 1 and 2... please throw some lime light on this misconception

"i read in idioms" ... where?

no, the adverb "instead" can come in the middle of a sentence, if that placement would be sensible.

the key difference is grammatical: "instead" is an adverb, while "instead OF" is a preposition.

[jp.jprasanna]

hi Ron - I knocked out A , D and E directly because of "developed as a way of solving" conveys wrong meaning as you have mentioned. Am I ok in doing so?

Now option C

"the mind , instead of blank slate " but instead comprises specialized mental mechanisms that were developed to solve

I didn't even read beyond "blank slate"as it seems to convey some sort of comparison between "mind" and " blank slate" But the original sentence convey a different comparison altogether? Am i ok in doing so?

Cheers
Jp

[agarwalmanoj2000]

(C) the human mind, instead of a "blank slate," it comprises specialized mental mechanisms that have been developed to solve

JP I am not sure of your reasoning, but some other errors in option C are -
1) "Have been" means mental mechanisms are still developing but mental mechanisms developed in the past.
2) "It" is ambiguous (Phychology or Mind)

[tim]

JP, Ron already explained that you can get rid of A/D/E for exactly the reason you suggest. As for your approach to C, I agree that the comparison of a mind to a blank slate is inappropriate here and that is one of the reasons C is incorrect..

[jp.jprasanna]

JP, Ron already explained that you can get rid of A/D/E for exactly the reason you suggest. As for your approach to C, I agree that the comparison of a mind to a blank slate is inappropriate here and that is one of the reasons C is incorrect..

Thanks a lot.

[tim]

my pleasure!

[s.datta28]

Hi Ron, Isn't 'but instead' in B is redundant?

[tim]

no.

[jyothi h]

Is , another reason A is incorrect , is that the "It" is referring to 'Evolutionary psychology" , instead of "human mind" - ( based on the sentence structure ?

Thanks,
Jyothi

[RonPurewal]

Is , another reason A is incorrect , is that the "It" is referring to 'Evolutionary psychology" , instead of "human mind" - ( based on the sentence structure ?

Thanks,
Jyothi

"It" can refer to "human mind", so, no, that's not a mistake.

Don't overcomplicate the use of pronouns.
If you have "it", and there's a singular noun that makes sense, then "it" is fine. "Sentence structure" doesn't affect the issue.

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron, Isn't 'but instead' in B is redundant?

Officially correct answers are correct!
Do not question them!

Don't fight the official answers. Complete waste of time.

"is this correct?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. The answer is always yes.

"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. The answer is always no.

Instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"Why is this correct?"
"How does this work?"
"What understanding am I lacking that I need to understand this choice?"

This is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking. You will find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you retire the idea that they might be wrong.

[lemonperb]

JP, Ron already explained that you can get rid of A/D/E for exactly the reason you suggest. As for your approach to C, I agree that the comparison of a mind to a blank slate is inappropriate here and that is one of the reasons C is incorrect..

(C) the human mind, instead of a "blank slate," it comprises specialized mental mechanisms that have been developed to solve

I thought C is wrong because it violates the parallelism. I wonder regardless of the meaning of the sentence, will C be correct if "it" is removed :the human mind, instead of a "blank slate," comprises specialized mental mechanisms that...
The basic construction will be "the human mind comprises mental mechanisms that...."

[RonPurewal]

Wrong meaning.

In that case, you get X, instead of Y, ...
I.e., you get a sentence suggesting that X is a substitute for Y.

E.g.,
Norella, instead of your usual bus driver, will drive you to school today.
"”> Normally, your usual driver drives you. Today, Norella will drive you instead.

In the current context, this construction results in a nonsense sentence.