Hotly Debated Sentence Correction GMAT Prep Question

Step 1) Recognize the keyword "and"—the left side is underlined and the right side is not.

Step 2) Since the right side uses "partly" I am biased towards answer choices C, D, and E. So I don’t even bother looking at A and B for now.

Step 3) With (C), "partly because of their steers acquiring"—not the preferred way of saying it…prefer "partly because their steers acquire certain characteristics"….move on for now

With (D), "partly because certain characteristics should be acquired by their steers"—this is frameowrk #1 Active Voice and clarity—"by their steers" indicates passive voice—generally not preferred, though not necessarily wrong yet….keep moving

With (E), "partly to acquire certain characteristics in their steers"—this is active voice. Good. But is it consistent with what is on the other side of the keyword "and"???
Here’s the tricky part. At first glance, most people would say it is not consistent. Because most people just look at the first two words "partly because" versus "partly to"

But actually it is consistent! Read it like this:
"In recent years cattle breeders have increasingly used crossbreeding, partly toacquire certain characteristics in their steers and partly because crossbreeding is said to provide hybrid vigor."

Notice both sides of the "and’ are in the form of "partly ….to do something…"
1) "partly to acquire"
and
2) "partly to provide hybrid vigor"

So that’s consistent. (D) would be correct if it were "partly because crossbreeding will allow their steers to acquire certain characteristics"–but that’s not what D says. So the answer is (E).

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