Lesson: Parallelism - Part II

Comment on Parallelism - Part II

Hi,
You are making a reference of previous lesson in which the rule that pronoun ambiguity is removed when 2 clauser are in parallel structure.

Are we talking about 'Badgers' example video?
am confused.. can u provide the link?
gmat-admin's picture

Yes, we're referring to the "badgers" example at https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-sentence-correction/video/1162

I'm a bit curious here:
according to your video, parallelism can be achieved by repeat the opening word (eg: who). However, how can we know whether the author wants to start the parallel game from "who" or the following word?
Eg: The man who won the battle, took the cup, and then left the ring is my brother
- is this sentence still correct and pertain parallelism? should I repeat "who" 2 more times?
gmat-admin's picture

In your sentence "The man who won the battle, took the cup, and then left the ring is my brother," there's no ambiguity regarding who completed those actions, so this sentence (as it stands) is fine. Remember, on the GMAT, your task isn't to identify the correct answer; it's to your task is to identify the best answer.

"For years, Manny searched for the anonymous man who donated millions of dollars to the orphanage that Manny founded and financed the construction of the local hospital" <- whit this sentence i am curious isn't "that Manny founded" also a relative clause? it starts with that and has a subject and a verb. Can we change this sentence using that also? like this

"For years, Manny searched for the anonymous man who donated millions of dollars to the orphanage that Manny founded and that financed the construction of the local hospital"

for me it seems like " that manny ~ " is modifying orphanage.
gmat-admin's picture

That's a great idea, Celan. The problem is that we never use THAT to refer to a person.

"For years, Manny searched for the anonymous man who donated millions of dollars to the orphanage that Manny founded and THAT financed the construction of the local hospital"

In the above sentence, THAT refers to the person who financed the construction.

Hi Brent,

I see an issue with the sentence you accepted as a correct one:

"For years, Manny searched for the anonymous man who donated millions of dollars to the orphanage that Manny founded and that financed the construction of the local hospital."

From reading about parallelism issues on other platforms I found out that you can check parallelism of a sentence structure by replacing the first one with the second one.

So again for this example "For years, Manny searched for the anonymous man who donated millions of dollars to the orphanage that Manny founded and that financed the construction of the local hospital"

that Manny founded (parallel to) that financed the construction of the local hospital

if we put the second argument of the parallelism on the place of the first argument we will get something like that:


For years, Manny searched for the anonymous man who donated millions of dollars to the orphanage that financed the construction of the local hospital"

Now it seems as orphanage financed the construction and not the "anonymous man"

Is my approach incorrect or there is indeed different meaning.

Thank you in advance for your help,
gmat-admin's picture

I never said that the above sentence was correct.
In my comment, I noted that we can't use THAT to refer to people. We must use WHO.

So, the sentence should be:
"For years, Manny searched for the anonymous man WHO donated millions of dollars to the orphanage that Manny founded and WHO financed the construction of the local hospital."

If we reverse the order, we get:
"For years, Manny searched for the anonymous man WHO financed the construction of the local hospital and WHO donated millions of dollars to the orphanage that Manny founded."

You'll that the rearranged sentence is also good.

Cheers,
Brent

Yes you are right Brent,

My mistake,

Nice explanation,

Thank you

For the sentence "Gary's dog barks whenever it sees a cat enter the yard and it hears folk music" just curious as to whether there is a construction (putting meaning aside) where the relative clause could start with it and still be considered parallel...for example, would "Gary's dog will bark if it sees a cat or it hears folk music" be correct? I've removed the pronoun whenever so now both relative clauses start with "it". I found it tempting to be drawn to the pronoun "it" and skip over "whenever" so am just wanting to confirm my thinking around this concept (i.e. focus on the first pronoun that you see when assessing parallelism).
gmat-admin's picture

Hi Karl,

The sentence "Gary's dog will bark if it sees a cat or it hears folk music" still has an ambiguity issue.

It suggests (possibly) that Gary's dog will perform two possible actions: bark or hear

To be more specific:
1) Gary's dog will bark if it sees a cat
OR
2) Gary's dog will hear folk music

To remove the ambiguity we can add a second IF for parallelism:
"Gary's dog will bark IF it sees a cat or IF it hears folk music"

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Bern,

Sorry, but I will ask you the same question as did Do - December 6, 2016.

How do you know from which point we have to start comparing parallelism?

To make my point I am going to introduce a symbol * that indicates the start of parallelism.

Gary's dog will bark if * it sees a cat or it hears folk music. (this is how I see the parallelism)

So if I split this sentences in two:

Gary's dog will bark if it sees a cat
Gary's dog will bark if it hears folk music

BUT you see this sentence differently, in my opinion.

Gary's dog will bark * if it sees a cat or it hears folk music.

Gary's dog will bark if it sees a cat
Gary's dog will bark it hears folk music
gmat-admin's picture

It all comes down to whether there's a chance of ambiguity (with can be quite subjective at times).

Consider this sentence: On Saturdays, Joe mows the lawn or he listens to music.
Now let's add an "IF" conditional, to get: On Saturdays, Joe mows the lawn IF it's sunny or he listens to music.
There may be some ambiguity around whether listening to music has any effect on whether Joe mows the lawn.
If the lawn-mowing is affected by listening to music, we should add another IF to get: On Saturdays, Joe mows the lawn IF it's sunny or IF he listens to music.

ASIDE: It's not easy to determine what can and cannot be assumed when it comes to parallelism.
For example, we can write: Sue likes TO ski, TO jump and TO run. Perfect parallelism!
However, it's equally fine to write: Sue likes TO ski, jump and run.

Fortunately, SC questions always come with 5 answer choices. So, you can always compare the options and determine which one best minimizes the likelihood of ambiguity.

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent,

Thank you, I understand what you mean.

Very interesting and explanatory example "On Saturdays, Joe mows the lawn or he listens to music."

I have then another question

On Saturdays, Joe mows the lawn IF it's sunny or he listens to music.

You provided a solution to remove ambiguity to one side:

"If the lawn-mowing is affected by listening to music, we should add another IF to get: On Saturdays, Joe mows the lawn IF it's sunny or IF he listens to music."

But do you know how you can fix the sentence in the opposite direction in which Joe usually performs two activities:

1. He mows the lawn IF it's sunny
2. He listens to music (no condition for listening to music, just second activity for him)

Thank you in advance
gmat-admin's picture

If Joe always listens to music on Saturdays, but he only Joe mows the lawn if it's sunny, one option is to write: On Saturdays, Joe listens to music, and, if it's sunny, he mows the lawn.

Fare enough,
Thank you very much.

Thanks for confirming Brent. I think might my confusion came from not distinguishing between a relative pronoun and other types of pronouns (in this case, "it" a personal pronoun).

Hi,

"Henry knows that Ann is the best swimmer and Burt will never defeat her"

In this sentence isn't 'Ann is the best swimmer' parallel to 'Burt will never defeat her'.

From what i know we can take words common to both the parts. (here --- 'that').
2A+2B is the same as 2(A+B).
according to this logic wouldn't the sentence be correct?
gmat-admin's picture

If we don't begin each clause with THAT, then it's unclear whether "Burt will never defeat her" is something that Henry knows or whether it's just a fact.

Consider this similar sentence: Tomorrow is Sunday, and Joe knows that Sunday is the day he goes to camp.

If Joe knows that tomorrow is Sunday, we can write: Joe knows THAT Sunday is the day he goes to camp, and THAT tomorrow is Sunday.
This means Joe knows TWO things:
1) Sunday is the day Joe goes to camp
2) Tomorrow is Sunday

If Joe does NOT know that tomorrow is Sunday, we can write: Joe knows THAT Sunday is the day he goes to camp, and tomorrow is Sunday.
This means Joe knows ONE thing:
1) Sunday is the day Joe goes to camp

Does that help?

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