According to one expert, the cause of genetic irregularities

[nsana]

According to one expert, the cause of genetic irregularities in many breeds of dog is not so much that dogs are being bred for looks or to meet other narrow criteria as that the breeds have relatively few founding members.

A. the cause of genetic irregularities in many breeds of dog is not so much that dogs are being bred for looks or to meet other narrow criteria
B. the cause of genetic irregularities in many breeds of dog is not as much their being bred for looks or meeting other narrow criteria as much
C. it is not so much the cause of genetic irregularities in many breeds of dog that they are being bred for looks or meeting other narrow criteria as much
D. it is not so much the cause of genetic irregularities in many breeds of dog is their being bred for looks or meeting other narrow criteria so much
E. it is not so much the cause of genetic irregularities in many breeds of dog to be bred for looks or to meet other narrow criteria

The correct answer is A. However, "...dogs are being bred for looks or to meet other ..." does not seem to use parallelism properly?
Also, is the idiom: "so much that ..... as that ..." the same as "as much that .... as much that ..."

Thank you.

[Guest]

the above SC comes from PREP2.

It's difficult.

Could you explain the usage of "X is not so much as that......as that....."?

[3Dec]

A is actually parallel and idiomatic:

"Not so much as " is the idiom that is correctly adoped here.

........ "Not so much that dogs are being bred for looks or to meet other narrow criteria as that........."

the phrases in italics are parallel.

Dogs are being bred for looks
Dogs are being bred to meet other narrow criteria.

[RonPurewal]

first of all, http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/sec ... t1835.html.

second:
"for looks" / "to meet..." is about as good as the parallelism here is going to get.
you see, there's no real way to express "for looks" as an infinitive without either (a) losing the intended meaning or (b) using a TON of words, both of which are undesirable outcomes. (for instance, you could say "to look good", but that's a qualitatively different meaning.)
also, you clearly can't express "to meet ... criteria" in the form "for NOUN".
therefore, you really can't improve much on this parallelism.

for another such problem, see #46 in the DIAGNOSTIC section of the og11 (NOT #46 in the regular sentence correction problem). that problem holds "just as frequently" to be parallel to "in the same way as...".
same sort of idea.

--

also, note that "that" is NOT an integral part of the parallel constructions you've posted.
the bare constructions are
not so much X as Y
and
as much X as Y
(you DO NOT say "much" twice in the second one.)
the construction doesn't have to contain "that...". for instance, she spurned her old boyfriend not so much because he had treated her badly as because she had simply become bored with him.