During the past decade, the labor market in France has not been operating according to free market principles, but instead stifling functioning through its various government regulations restricting the hiring and firing of workers.

A. principles, but instead stifling functioning through its various government regulations restricting the hiring and firing of workers

B. principles, instead it has been functioning in a stifled manner as a result of various government regulations that restrict the hiring and firing of workers

C. principles, rather functioning despite being stifled as a result of government regulations that variously restrict worker hiring and firing

D. principles; the hiring and firing of workers is restricted there by various government regulations, its functioning being stifled

E. principles; instead, its functioning has been stifled by various government regulations restricting the hiring and firing of workers

I don't quiet get why the answer E is correct here... you have active and passive clauses seperated by semi colon. That isn't parallel - I thought they had to be. Can someone help?

this sentence is best structured in the manner of (e).

the first half talks about how the labor market operates (or has been operating, or whatever other tense). that's active, and there's not really any way to make it passive.

the second half talks about how the labor market is stifled (or has been stifled, or whatever other tense). that's passive.
you wouldn't want to shift it around so that it's in the active ("instead, various gov't regulations ... have stifled its functioning"), because that would create a weird disconnect, in which the first half of the sentence appears to be focused on the labor market but the second half appears to be focused on the government regulations themselves.
if you leave it as is - active in the first half, passive in the second - then both halves are focused on the labor market.

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there are plenty of other examples in which the optimal construction is like this, too.

for instance:
the statue had stood on this spot for seventy years before it was stolen in 1985.
again, first half = active, second half = passive. but i think you'll agree that this form is clearly superior to "...before someone stole it..."

Hi ,
Plz let me know y b is not the ans...it looks || ..
According to my understanding we are dealing with verbs such as operating , functioning so we cant use instead..bt we can use rather in place of instead...

Plz correct me if I m wrong.

@ sudhanshu.jha03 :

(B)
During the past decade, the labor market in France has not been operating according to free market principles, instead it has been functioning in a stifled manner as a result of various government regulations that restrict the hiring and firing of workers

B looks very tempting, but it is actually a run on sentence. ie; 2 independent sentences connected with just a comma(,) and without any co-ordinating conjunction.

For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So (FANBOYS)-----Co-ordinating Conjunctions

On the other hand,"instead" is an adverb, so that cannot act as a conjunction per se.


A “comma + FANBOYS” or a "semicolon" is needed to connect two clauses if they are both independent.

Hope this helps..

thanks Gokul..it is really helpful :-)

thanks, Gokul!

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