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In question number 5, if we see surrounding sentences. There is a pattern that two sentence joined by a single comma and the latter is a verb. I applied that idea and marked D. Got the question wrong.

I had never left the state, let alone 5. departing from the country.

The options are:

A - No Change
B - the country.
C - from the country.
D - depart from the country.

The correct answer is B. However, I think B makes the sentence unclear. Please help me with this question: Why B, Not D?

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    I'm going to edit your question (again), but I hope it will be for the last time. It is quite inconsiderate to expect us all to turn our head 90 degrees to figure out what the heck you are talking about. Next time, edit to resize, rotate and crop your picture before you post.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 22:15
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    Easy solution @J.R.- get rid of the image entirely and require that the test question be written out :P
    – Catija
    Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 22:32

2 Answers 2

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How well are you familiar with the expression let alone? If you know how to use this expression, you will understand why you were wrong in choosing D as the right answer. I have never done A, let alone, B can be paraphrased as follows: I have never done A and it is even more true that I have never done B. With that in mind, let's go through all possible choices and see which one makes more sense.

I had never left the state and it is even more true that I had never left departing from the country.

Does left departing from the country sound like good English to you? I hope it doesn't. So, that one can be discarded.

I had never left the state and it is even more true that I had never left from the country.

Well, you don't leave FROM something. You usually leave something: a country, an organization, an association etc. This one is not going to work either.

I had never left the state and it is even more true that I had never left depart from the country.

Again, left depart sounds like total gibberish.

I had never left the state and it is even more true that I had never left the country.

Wouldn't you agree that finally this one does actually sound like good English? That's why B is the correct answer.

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The question here concerns parallel structures, and answer D is impossible because of tense.

The first clause uses past perfect "had never left", and "left". The second parallel clause must be in the same tense. so

I had never left the state, let alone departed from the country.

could be correct "left the state" is parallel to "departed from the country". But that is not an option

Of the available answers, "the country" can run parallel to "the state". That is the only possibility.

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