Unlike the Buildings in Mesopotamian Cities, Which were Arranged Haphazardly, The Same Basic Plan was Followed for All Cities of the Indus Valley

Question: Unlike the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley: with houses laid out on a north-south, east-west grid, and houses and walls were built of standard-size bricks.

(A) the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley: with houses
(B) the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were haphazard in arrangement, the same basic plan was used in all cities of the Indus Valley: houses were
(C) the arrangement of buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were haphazard, the cities of the Indus Valley all followed the same basic plan: houses
(D) Mesopotamian cities, in which buildings were arranged haphazardly, the cities of the Indus Valley all followed the same basic plan: houses were
(E) Mesopotamian cities, which had buildings that were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was used for all cities in the Indus Valley: houses that were

“Unlike the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley: with houses laid out on a north-south, east-west grid, and houses and walls were built of standard-size bricks.” - is a GMAT sentence correction question. These types of questions contain grammatical errors in the underlined sentence and we have to choose the correct statement from the options. GMAT sentence correction is a part of GMAT verbal.

Answer: D
Explanation:

The given sentence correction question is tested by the given-below rules:

• Parallelism
• Comparison of two elements
• Modifiers

Unlike the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley: with houses laid out on a north-south, east-west grid, and houses and walls were built of standard-size bricks.

(A) As the sentence is trying to match the "buildings in Mesopotamian cities" with "the same basic plan" which isn't a logical comparison. Also, within the second part of the sentence, "with houses" isn't parallel to "walls were".
(B) Once again "buildings in Mesopotamian cities" is compared with "the same basic plan" which isn't a logical comparison. Also, a clause which is relating Mesopotamian cities, meaning, Mesopotamian cities were haphazard in arrangement and not the buildings. During this answer choice, the parallelism error is fixed by correctly using "houses were" which is parallel to "walls were".
(C) In this sentence, "arrangement of buildings in Mesopotamian cities" is compared with "the cities of the Indus Valley". Also, a clause which is concerning Mesopotamian cities, meaning, Mesopotamian cities were haphazard in arrangement and not the buildings. Also, there's a parallelism error where "houses" isn't parallel to "walls were".
(D) This is an accurate sentence. Here "Mesopotamian cities" is compared with "the cities of the Indus Valley". Also, it's clear that buildings were arranged haphazardly, and within the second part of the sentence, the phrase "houses were" is now parallel to "walls were".
(E) In this sentence "Mesopotamian cities" is compared with "the same basic plan" which isn't a logical comparison. Also, the phrase "houses that were" isn't parallel to "walls were".

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