why d is wrong,

[RonPurewal]

is this ellipsis understood? I almost chose Ans (D) because of that.

^^ finally, i have no idea what "ellipsis" means, so hopefully that doesn't significantly affect the nature of your question. the above should still address the issue completely.

[douyang]

that idiom is wrong there, yes.

there's also the issue of "instead of...", which should be followed by a noun.
(this is not a special construction; it's the same thing you need behind "of" in general.)

hi Ron,
Would u mind explain why E is wrong?
Thank u very much~~~~~~~~

The two methods of getting heat are...
• drawing body heat from the sun
• burning calories to generate it

E is non-parallel.

I picked E because I thought "body heat" could be parallel with "their body heat" structurally. I also though they made sense together:

by drawing their body heat directly from the Sun
instead of (by drawing) the body heat generated by burning calories

While I disliked the placement of "it" in A because it does not directly parallel to "body heat", I picked E instead of A.

Ron, could you advise what went wrong in above thinking process?

[RonPurewal]

While I disliked the placement of "it" in A because it does not directly parallel to "body heat",

you're making way too many demands on parallelism here.
drawing xxx ... rather than ... burning yyy

those are parallel structures.

done.

parallel structures do not need to have exactly the same kinds of modifiers attached to them.

[RonPurewal]

by drawing their body heat directly from the Sun
instead of (by drawing) the body heat generated by burning calories

if you have both the pink idea and the blue idea, the sentence is redundant.

(or, more precisely, it's self-contradictory: if you draw energy from somewhere, then, by definition, you are NOT generating that energy.)

[RonPurewal]

...and, on top of all that, choice E doesn't say that the animals are "burning calories". (in fact, if you write that the animals are drawing "energy generated by burning calories", you're suggesting that some other organisms are burning the calories, and that the reptiles are just freeloading off of those organisms' efforts).

[ChloeHe]

Hi Ron,

I know how the correct answer works. But for C, I cannot figure out this sentence's structure successfully. Could you please help me on this problem?


Reptiles, by drawing their body heat directly from the Sun and not from generating it by burning calories, can survive......

I think "and" is wrong here, but if we change "and" into "but", will the two parts be paralleled?

by drawing their body heat directly from the Sun but not from generating it by burning calories



So many thanks for your help!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You're right that we've got a conjunction error: "and" is used to join two things that act in the same way; "but" is used for contrast, such as in the sentence 'I like sport, but not football.' However, the conjunction "but" doesn't work here, as the two ideas (heat from the sun, and heat from the body) aren't just in contrast, they are potential replacements. That's why 'rather than' or 'instead of' are better ways to link the phrases. (Sure, 'instead of' has some other problems here - see Ron's post.)

On top of that, the phrase 'from generating it' is incorrect. Animals don't get heat from generating it, they get it by generating it. 'From' makes it sound as if the heat is coming from the outside. This is correct when we say 'from the sun', but not 'from generating it'.

[ChloeHe]

You're right that we've got a conjunction error: "and" is used to join two things that act in the same way; "but" is used for contrast, such as in the sentence 'I like sport, but not football.' However, the conjunction "but" doesn't work here, as the two ideas (heat from the sun, and heat from the body) aren't just in contrast, they are potential replacements. That's why 'rather than' or 'instead of' are better ways to link the phrases. (Sure, 'instead of' has some other problems here - see Ron's post.)

On top of that, the phrase 'from generating it' is incorrect. Animals don't get heat from generating it, they get it by generating it. 'From' makes it sound as if the heat is coming from the outside. This is correct when we say 'from the sun', but not 'from generating it'.

Clearly understood! Thank you so much~~~

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]