<p>I need help on this writing question.</p>
<p>Early American factories did not so much replace household manufacturing but complement it. </p>
<p>a) but complement
b)as complement
c)but they complemented
d)and they complemented
e)as they were to complement</p>
<p>Could you give me an explanation for the correct answer and also why e is wrong? Thanks.</p>
<p>E is wrong because there has to be parallelism</p>
<p>like this: as they complimented...blah blah</p>
<p>but i don't see that anywhere in the choices...i might be wrong</p>
<p>its B but i cant explain why. Lets just wait for someone.....</p>
<p>It's B because it's a comparison. A, C, and D don't provide a word of comparison. E I assume you can figure out what's wrong with. It complemented it more than it replaced it; it's a comparison. </p>
<p>It's confusing because they don't have two optional words. "as much as complement" would be the way I would have written it, but the "as much" is redundant with "so much." I would have excluded "so much" and said "Early American factories did not replace household manufacturing as much as complement it." But nonetheless, B is still correct.</p>
<p>Simple. As much as needs to be together. Therefore, B is the answer to choose :^D</p>
<p>“not so much A as B” is an idiom and parallelism signal. There is no alternative to it.</p>