Florida's Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail

[MadeleineK361]

Florida’s Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail, a mixed-use recreation trail paved over an old rail bed, is a curious paradox: it is not only completely man-made but also designed exclusively for human use, yet is classified as a state park.


(A) is not only completely man-made but also designed exclusively for human use, yet is

(B) not only is completely man-made but also exclusively designed for human use, yet it is

(C) is completely man-made but also exclusively designed for human use, yet

(D)is completely man-made but also has been designed exclusively for human use, yet is

(E) is not only completely man-made but also is exclusively designed for human use, yet


I am honestly just confused about how this is an unambiguous sentence. The initial part says that the sentence will introduce a paradox - while reading, I am signaled to believe the paradox is signaled by "not only... BUT."

Then, a clause beginning with "yet" comes after the clause beginning with "but." "All the Verbal" explains that the correct answer choice will always be an unambiguous sentence, but none of these options are unambiguous (at least to me) in their meaning.

What is the paradox? That the trail is man-made and a state park, or that it is designed for human use and is a state park? I am having a very hard time extracting the meaning from this sentence. The construction of "not only"..."but"..."yet" makes no sense to me - how is it okay for the "yet" to follow the "but" clause.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Yes, this is a confusing sentence. Although I don't know what the official classification for 'state park' is, the sentence seems to suggest that man-made things aren't usually classified as state parks.

What makes it confusing, I think, is that there are multiple parallel constructions. It's great practice to analyze correct answer choices, so let me try. There are certain markers for parallelism in the sentence, so I've underlined them:
Florida’s Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail, a mixed-use recreation trail paved over an old rail bed, is a curious paradox: it is not only completely man-made but also designed exclusively for human use, yet is classified as a state park.

Just to be clear about parallelism, we can check if a parallel construction makes sense by identifying the parallel markers, parallel elements, and root phrase. For example, in the sentence Chloe likes running and cycling. the marker is 'and', the elements are 'running' and 'cycling', and the root phrase is 'Chloe likes'.

In the problem above, the markers 'not only...but also...' show two things about the state trail that make it artificial. Note that 'not only... but also...' join together two bits of information that act in the same direction - there's no contrast here. However, the marker 'yet' joins together contrasting things. On my analysis, the second element for the 'yet' is the phrase 'is classified as a state park', the first element is 'is not only completely man-made but also designed exclusively for human use', meaning that the root phrase is simply the word 'it'. Perhaps if I lay it out like this it will be clearer:

it...
(1) is not only completely man-made but also designed exclusively for human use
yet...
(2) is classified as a state park

[JbhB682]

Florida’s Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail, a mixed-use recreation trail paved over an old rail bed, is a curious paradox: it is not only completely man-made but also designed exclusively for human use, yet is classified as a state park.

(A) is not only completely man-made but also designed exclusively for human use, yet is
(B) not only is completely man-made but also exclusively designed for human use, yet it is
(C) is completely man-made but also exclusively designed for human use, yet
(D)is completely man-made but also has been designed exclusively for human use, yet is
(E) is not only completely man-made but also is exclusively designed for human use, yet

Hi - isn't the bold (Comma + Yet) an example of COMMA + FANBOY ?

If true, shouldn't the blue HAVE to be a clause ?

I eliminated all but option B because B has a subject after the comma +fanboy

Option A - i thought lacked the clause in the 2nd half of the sentence

Thoughts ?

[esledge]

The minimum needed to have a clause is a verb, which A, B, and D have. Parallelism comes into play when determining whether there needs to be a subject in the second part. (I would guess that most of the time the subject you are looking for will be in the second half, but I think this question is showing an acceptable exception.)

This is from the Strategy Guide:
He worked hard, and a raise was his reward.
The FANBOY is "and," and the two clauses each have a subject, because the subjects ("He" and "a raise") are different.

But the same idea could be presented this way:
He worked hard, and was awarded a raise.
The FANBOY is "and," and this time the two clauses share the same subject ("He"). As conjunctions, the FANBOYS are/can be thought of as parallelism markers. I think you could probably leave the comma out of this example, but the GMAT tends not to test comma vs. no comma much, and certainly not in the absence of other issues.

Here's a variation, where the same subject goes with both clauses and you should use the "comma, FANBOY" construction:
He worked hard, but did not get the promotion he had hoped for.