SC Help needed

[babi.naren]

The art installation in Central Park, which featured over a hundred men and women dressed in army fatigues and lying on the ground as if they had been killed in battle, represented neither an anti-war nor a pro-military statement, but rather attempted to be commenting creatively on troubled times.
a. but rather attempted to be commenting creatively
b. but attempted a rather creative comment
c. but rather was an attempt to comment creatively
d. but commented rather creatively, or at least attempted to
e. but commented creatively, or, rather, attempted to comment

Source: gmat club tests
Answer: C

arent but & rather redundant?
Can some kindly explain

[RonPurewal]

Not redundant.

• They're not structurally the same. "But" connects parallel structures; "rather" doesn't.

• Their meaning isn't the same, either. "But" expresses general contrast, but "rather" expresses more specifically the idea that thing #2 is an alternative to thing #1.

If it were possible to use just "rather" without "but", then you'd possibly have a point here. That's not possible, though, because "but" is needed to connect the two structures.

[babi.naren]

Not redundant.

• They're not structurally the same. "But" connects parallel structures; "rather" doesn't.

• Their meaning isn't the same, either. "But" expresses general contrast, but "rather" expresses more specifically the idea that thing #2 is an alternative to thing #1.

If it were possible to use just "rather" without "but", then you'd possibly have a point here. That's not possible, though, because "but" is needed to connect the two structures.

Thanks a lot Ron ..to the point as always :)

[tim]

:)

[RonPurewal]

By the way—When you have questions like these, you can often figure out the answers just by experimenting with the constructions yourself.

I.e., try to make simple sentences that do certain things, and see whether those sentences work.
For instance, here, if you write a sentence containing "but rather..." and then try to eliminate "but" (leaving just "rather"), you'll quickly figure out that you need to add a connector to take the place of the missing "but".

[divyanshu.a5]

Isn't here a lack of parallelism between the two words marked in bold?

The art installation in Central Park represented neither an anti-war nor a pro-military statement but rather was an attempt to comment creatively.

I was looking this with non-parallelism between active voice and passive voice but here they have paralleled - The art installation represented (active voice) to The art installation was an attempt (passive voice).
I am not sure but here this parallelism between active voice and passive voice correct because we are talking about the same thing i.e. "the art installation"?

[RonPurewal]

parallelism has nothing to do with tenses, and nothing to do with active/passive.

in terms of mechanics, ALL verbs are equivalent.
the only mechanical issue with the parallelism here is...
verb || verb

as long as that's satisfied, you're DONE with grammatical concerns. the rest is context + common sense. ANY relationships of tenses/voices are due entirely to context / intended meaning.

[RonPurewal]

e.g.,
Dave joined the Air Force when he was 18 years old and will be discharged five years from now.

this is a parallel structure.

the first verb (joined) is past; the second (will be discharged) is future.
also, the first is active, while the second is passive.
neither of these things has any effect upon the parallelism; the parallelism, mechanically speaking, is just "verb || verb".
in context, it should be perfectly clear why the first verb MUST be past+active, and why the second verb MUST be future+passive.

[RonPurewal]

and, lastly,

The art installation was an attempt (passive voice).

this is not passive voice.
passive voice is "this thing was ___ed".

but, as explained above, that whole notion is irrelevant to this issue anyway.

[divyanshu.a5]

Thanks Ron.

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.

[tpsharma2u]

parallelism has nothing to do with tenses, and nothing to do with active/passive.

in terms of mechanics, ALL verbs are equivalent.
the only mechanical issue with the parallelism here is...
verb || verb

as long as that's satisfied, you're DONE with grammatical concerns. the rest is context + common sense. ANY relationships of tenses/voices are due entirely to context / intended meaning.

Hi Ron,

Is the construction of sentence correct.
[redacted]

[RonPurewal]

if you are introducing the content of a different problem, then please make a different thread, with a citation of the original source (as always) as per the forum rules.
thanks.

[tpsharma2u]

Hi Ron,

the sentence says -
The art installation in Central Park, which featured over a hundred men and women dressed in army fatigues and lying on the ground as if they had been killed in battle, represented neither an anti-war nor a pro-military statement, but rather was an attempt to comment creatively on troubled times.

should the underlined portion not be -" but rather an attempt to comment creatively"...

If I remove non-essential parts and read into sentence-
The art installation in Central Park represented neither an anti-war nor a pro-military statement, but rather was an attempt to comment creatively on troubled times.

so it is - XXX represented neither R nor S, but rather T...
so all three R, S and T should be parallel..
But " an anti-war" and "was an attempt.." are not parallel"..
we do not require a VERB again. Parallelism should be Noun vs Noun..

[RonPurewal]

if you are introducing the content of a different problem, then please make a different thread, with a citation of the original source (as always) as per the forum rules.
thanks.