Lesson: Parallelism - Part I

The primary verb here is DETER.
The subject will be whoever/whatever is doing the deterring.

For example, in the sentence "Neither THE CITY nor THE NEIGHBORS will deter Helen from painting her house pink," the subjects are CITY and NEIGHBORS.

Cheers,
Brent

Tough question!

I want to say the first option is true. Just keep in mind that modifiers are not necessarily included.
For example, "I enjoy eating potatoes, corn and Italian food is parallel, even though the structure is "I enjoy eating NOUN, NOUN and ADJECTIVE NOUN.

That list should cover everything.

Hi Alex,

The verbs BREWED, STEAMED, and TOLD are in parallel form, because they're all written in the SIMPLE PAST TENSE form.

With many verbs, we create the simple past tense form by simply adding "ED" to the end of the verb.
Some examples include: JUMPED, WALKED, SLIPPED, KICKED, BREWED, STEAMED, etc.

However, other verbs do not follow this form.
The simple past tense of TO WRITE is WROTE.
The simple past tense of TO BUY is BOUGHT.
The simple past tense of TO DRAW is DREW.
The simple past tense of TO TELL is TOLD.
etc

So, determining parallelism goes beyond examining the last letters of each word.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

Unfortunately, that's almost impossible to do, since most Sentence Correction questions contain multiple errors. So, for one question, one answer choice may have a tense issue, another a subject-verb disagreement, another a modifier issue, and so on. So, you can't really place that question into one category.

Another problem is that such a categorization system would give the user a very big (and unfair ) hint. For example, if a question is categorized as a "subject-verb agreement" question, then users would know to focus on that issue.

#1 has a parallel construction.
We have: The more NOUN VERB, the better NOUN VERB
That is, The more you (noun) pay (verb), the better the quality (noun) is (verb).

In sentence #2, we have: The more NOUN VERB, the better VERB NOUN

Link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/some-anthropologists-believe-that-the-genetic...

A and D are out, because they are independent clauses, and we need either a semicolon or a comma + conjunction to separate two independent clauses.

Also note that the intended meaning is that the event reduced the population AND reduced the genetic variation.
C does not suggest that the event reduced the genetic variation

For E, the "that" in "THAT our ancestors.." is nonsensical.

For this question everything revolves around WHAT (exactly) we're talking about.

A) Until a few centuries ago, any large bones discovered in the fields or caves of Europe, now known to be large prehistoric animals, were usually assumed ....
WHAT was known to be large prehistoric animals?
The bones? The fields? The caves?
Wayyyyyy too ambiguous.

E) Until a few centuries ago, any large bones discovered in the fields or caves of Europe, currently known as those of large prehistoric animals, were usually assumed to be those of....
WHAT are currently known as those of large prehistoric animals
The bones? The fields? The caves?
Same problem.

C) Until a few centuries ago, any large bones discovered in the fields or caves of Europe, bones now known to be those of large prehistoric animals, were usually assumed to be...
Perfect! By repeating the word BONES, we know exactly what the author is referring to.

Cheers,
Brent
PS: In the future, please stick to official GMAT questions. They are, by far, the best resources.

Question link: https://gmatclub.com/forum/by-devising-an-instrument-made-from-a-rod-wir...

We could use BY twice ("BY devising....and BY employing") to be super parallel, but it's not 100% required (this is the somewhat subjective nature of Sentence Correction).

If there aren't many words between "BY devising" and "employing," then adding a second BY isn't necessary.

For example, consider the sentence:
"Joe stays healthy BY stretching and jogging." This construction is totally fine, given the distance between STRETCHING and JOGGING.

That said, it would also be correct to write:
"Joe stays healthy BY stretching and BY jogging."

Does that help?

Sorry, but I prefer not to answer unofficial Verbal questions since they often don’t represent what you’ll encounter on test day (please see comment policy)

The sentence "Larissa will EITHER buy a bookcase OR sell her books" is in the form: "Larissa will EITHER VERB a NOUN OR VERB a NOUN." perfect!!

Here is another sentence which is also fine:
"Either Larissa will buy a bookcase or she will sell her books" is in the form EITHER Larissa WILL VERB a NOUN OR Larissa (she) WILL VERB her NOUNS.
Both parts are parallel

Yes, we have flashcards for SC.
All flashcards can be found here: https://www.gmatprepnow.com/content/free-content

For this sentence, the phrase "structures that represented a city's commitment to a public realm, as opposed to a private one" modifies the word EDIFICES.

Q: What kind of edifices? A: Structures that represented a city's commitment to a public realm, as opposed to a private one.

When we ignore this modifying phrase (fluff), we get a perfectly structured sentence: The cathedrals of the middle ages were as much community centers as purely religious edifices

The relative clause "THAT are clean, fast-growing, and pay good wages to skilled workers" provides more information about INDUSTRIES.

What kind of industries?
Industries THAT are clean, fast-growing, and pay good wages to skilled workers.
In other words:
- The industries are clean.
- The industries are fast-growing.
- The industries pay good wages to skilled workers.

Since the entire clause modifies the word INDUSTRIES, it is fluff.

Notice that when we eliminate the fluff from the sentence, the remaining words still constitute a valid and grammatically correct sentence: Many states in search of industries are trying to attract high-technology industries.