<p>So recently someone posted a grammar question: Forest fires, long (thought to be) a detriment to the environment, (are) now understood (not only) to be (unavoidable) but also to be (a boon) to the forests.</p>
<p>The answer is No error, but I thought it was "a boon". Doesn't the plural "forest fires" have to agree with the plural "boons"? So instead, "Forest fires...are...boons to the forests"? Isn't this similar to the error, "The students want to become a doctor"? Multiple students can't become one doctor, just like multiple forest fires can't be one boon. Can someone explain to me why in this case, the plural "forest fires" can agree with the singular "a boon".I find that I confuse myself with this concept often, and end up marking a sentence with an error, when it actually doesn't have one.</p>
<p>Think of it this way: I found the entrées to be a great feast.
You can group things together, although im not quite sure the exact reasoning behind the one above (i feel kinda dumb right now- whats a boon).</p>
<p>I believe that this sentence follows the “not only…but also”</p>
<p>Forest fires, long (thought to be) a detriment to the environment, (are) now understood (not only) to be (unavoidable) but also to be (a boon) to the forests.</p>
<p>The parallelism needs to be after the not only and the but also clause. </p>
<p>In this sentence, “to be” follows each clause making it parallel. </p>
<h2>Whatever follows the “parallel part”, so to speak, is irrelevant, which is why “a boon” is correct. </h2>
<p>It’s similar to if you have:</p>
<p>I love to eat ice cream, swim happily, and sleep.</p>
<p>This sentence is parallel because eat, swim, and sleep is uniform. It doesn’t matter that there’s a noun following eat, an adverb following swim, and nothing after sleep. </p>
<p>I don’t know why that word doesn’t follow the rule, but I have never heard of the phrase “so and so…are known to be boons.” The sentence doesn’t sound right. </p>
<p>It’s bad enough to use non college board math questions. At least math is unambiguous (most of the time). But there are a zillion fine shades of language to sort through. It is a giant waste of time to try to decode this question which I believe is princeton review. At best, you become a master at interpreting something other than the test you care about. </p>