Not only did Christopher Columbus refuse to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, he also pressed relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia, finally receiving approval and financing from King Ferdinand of Spain in 1492 after several rejections.
Not only did Christopher Columbus refuse to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, he also pressed relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia, finally receiving
Not only did Christopher Columbus refuse to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, also pressing relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia; he finally received
Christopher Columbus not only refused to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, but he pressed relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia, and finally receiving
Christopher Columbus not only refused to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat but pressed relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia, finally receiving
Not only refusing to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat but pressing relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia, Christopher Columbus, finally receiving

--------------------------------------

I'm not a native speaker but I remember the rule that if the sentence emphasizes something , you can not change the "emphasizing words"
in this case, "Not only" is put in front of the sentence to emphasize
the contribution of Columbus. So why D is the right answer?

D has the words "not only". these words are indeed important, but it is not absolutely mandatory that they show up as the first two words of the sentence..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

I wonder what the exact correct usage of the idiom - "not only DID ... but (also)" would be if "Not only" begins a sentence.

I understand that it requires an inverted construction similar to "No sooner... " and "Hardly ..." . But, I just want to confirm if there are any finer points involved - with examples of course. :)

P.S. - Before posting the query here, I did dig old threads here at MGMAT and on the Internet for the rules, but didn't find any.

i think that the absense of the exact <not only...but also> construction is confusing here. GMAT seems to love this idiom and i am used to seeing it in that exact format. i first scanned through all the answer choices, got somewhat upset that there was no <also> and tried to eluminate.


if C was did not have the gerund error at the end and was phrased like this. what would be correct C or D? Is <he> unparallel/unncessary in C? If <he> was absent and both were identical except for the comma in front of <but>, can we negate D, because it is missing a comma, creating a run-on sentence?

Christopher Columbus not only refused to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat, but he pressed relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia, finally receiving (modified to match D)

Christopher Columbus not only refused to accept the conventional wisdom that the earth was flat but pressed relentlessly for royal support for his westward voyage to Asia, finally receiving

how about this example?

Not only did Christopher Columbus land on the wrong continent, but he also wreaked havoc on the indigenous populations he encountered.

i think this would be an appropriate use of "not only" at the beginning of the sentence, but this sort of construction doesn't seem to be one that the GMAT employs frequently..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

Thanks Tim for the reply. The part of your reply in bold gives me so much pleasure in ticking off one more devil off my TODO notes. :)

Tim is awesome; glad he could help!

_________________
Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor