Identify the part of the sentence that contains a grammatical error.
What troubled the evaluators most (1)/ was not the complexity of the argument (2)/ but that its logic (3)/ and conclusions were fundamentally flawed. (4)
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Explanation
Correct Answer: (3)
Explanation
• Part (3) contains an error of faulty parallelism.
• The correlative construction not... but... must join grammatically parallel structures.
• In part (2), the structure following 'not' is a noun phrase (the complexity of the argument). Therefore, the element following 'but' must also be a noun phrase rather than a clause introduced by 'that'.
• To maintain parallelism, replace but that its logic with but the fact that its logic or rephrase it as but its flawed logic.
Corrected Sentence: What troubled the evaluators most was not the complexity of the argument, but the fact that its logic and conclusions were fundamentally flawed.