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As I've read in the Cambridge dictionary:

To add emphasis, we can use not only at the beginning of a clause. When we do this, we invert the subject and the verb:

Not only was it raining all day at the wedding but also the band was late.

Not only will they paint the outside of the house but also the inside.

When there is no auxiliary verb or main verb be, we use do, does, did:

Not only did she forget my birthday, but she also didn’t even apologize for forgetting it.

As you see all of the above examples are active sentences. I've encountered the following sentence in a sample for Writing Task 1 in Cambridge IELTS 9 Student's Book.

Not only lots of facilities are built on the island but also the sea is used for activities.

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I'm wondering whether inversion rule still holds true for passive sentences?
I mean shouldn't the sentence be written like the following?

Not only are lots of facilities built on the island but also the sea is used for activities.

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    Not only will they paint the outside of the house but also the inside is a poor sentence. May 6, 2022 at 16:50
  • @JeffreyCarney I guess if we want to insist on not only being in the beginning, we should write either Not only will they paint outside of the house but also they will paint inside or Not only will they paint outside of the house but they will also paint inside because we should consider parallelism. Anyway this was just an example by Cambridge dictionary. In my opinion there's no need to place not only in the beginning and we can write they will paint not only the outside of the house but also the inside. Am I right? Please correct me if there's any mistake. May 6, 2022 at 17:56
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    Your revision sounds much better. You've caught the exact problem that bothered me. May 6, 2022 at 18:50

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Yes, the inversion should be done. This is a minor error that does not affect understanding (and so does prevent the candidate from achieving the band 7)

Not only are lots of facilities built on the island, but also the sea is used for activities.

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