Help please with the use of parallel comparison, among them.

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yihungkuo
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Topic: Help please with the use of parallel comparison, among them.
PostSat Mar 15, 2008 3:13 am
Hi, a few questions about sentences..

1st:

In ancient Thailand, much of the local artisans' creative energy was expended for the creation of Buddha images and when they constructed and decorated the temples that enshrined them.

A. much of the local artisans' creative energy was expended for the creation of Buddha images and when they constructed and decorated the temples that enshrined them
B. much of the local artisans' creative energy was expended on the creation of Buddha images and on construction and decoration of the temples in which they were enshrined
C. much of the local artisans' creative energy was expended on the creation of Buddha images as well as constructing and decoration of the temples in which they were enshrined
D. creating images of Buddha accounted for much of the local artisans' creative energy, and also constructing and decorating the temples enshrining them
E. the creating of Buddha images accounted for much of the local artisans' creative energy as well as construction and decoration of the temples that enshrined them

The answer is "B". If I change B to the below, is it still correct? (taking 2nd 'on' off)

much of the local artisans' creative energy was expended on the creation of Buddha images and construction and decoration of the temples in which they were enshrined


2nd question:

In Greek theology the supreme being was Esaugetu Emissee (Master of Breath), who dwelt in an upper realm in which the sky was the floor, and who had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.

A. in which the sky was the floor, and who had the power to give and to take
B. where the sky was the floor, having the power to give and to take
C. whose floor was the sky, and who has the power of giving and of taking
D. in which the sky was the floor, with the power of giving and taking
E. whose floor was the sky, having the power to give and take

The answer is "A", If I take the 2nd 'who' and the comma before it, is that correct?

In Greek theology the supreme being was Esaugetu Emissee (Master of Breath), who dwelt in an upper realm in which the sky was the floor and had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.

Last question:

At the annual stockholders meeting, investors heard a presentation on the numerous challenges facing the company, including among them the threat from a rival's multibillion-dollar patent-infringement suit and the declining sales for the company's powerful microprocessor chip.

A. including among them the threat from a rival's multibillion-dollar patentinfringement suit and the declining sales for
B. which includes the threat of a rival's multibillion-dollar patent-infringement suit and declining sales of
C. included among these the threat from a rival's multibillion-dollar patentinfringement suit as well as a decline in sales for
D. among them the threat of a rival's multibillion-dollar patent-infringement suit and the decline in sales of
E. among these the threat from a rival's multibillion-dollar patent-infringement suit as well as the decline in sales for

The answer is "D". this doesnt sound right to me... it sounds like it should be:
among them "are" the threat of.....

Is "among them" the same as "including"? So can we fix answer "A" by removing the "among them" behind the "including" as follows:

including the threat from a rival's multibillion-dollar patentinfringement suit and the declining sales of
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lunarpower
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PostMon Mar 17, 2008 11:47 pm
a number of good questions. before i address the specifics, i think it's worthwhile to point out a few general concepts.

* if an answer choice duplicates words (as does your second example, with the word 'who'), think hard about whether removing the repetition(s) creates ambiguity. wordiness is generally considered a Very Bad Thing on the gmat, but those little words are often justified by their eliminating alternate interpretations of the sentence.

* consider parallelism of all types - parts of speech, verb tenses, idiomatic constructions, etc., but also LOGICAL parallelism (make sure 2 parallel nouns aren't just nouns, but nouns that fulfill the same sort of function in the context of the sentence).

yihungkuo wrote:
1st:

In ancient Thailand, much of the local artisans' creative energy was expended for the creation of Buddha images and when they constructed and decorated the temples that enshrined them.
...
B. much of the local artisans' creative energy was expended on the creation of Buddha images and on construction and decoration of the temples in which they were enshrined
...
The answer is "B". If I change B to the below, is it still correct? (taking 2nd 'on' off)

much of the local artisans' creative energy was expended on the creation of Buddha images and construction and decoration of the temples in which they were enshrined
you can't get rid of the second 'on'; if you did, you'd be left with a sentence that is at worst downright ambiguous, and at best extremely difficult to parse.

if you take out modifiers, you're left with the following:
on the creation ... and construction and decoration ...
at worst, this sounds ilke a list of 3 separate items, rather than the intended 2. at best, it's difficult to parse: the reader is supposed to see 'X and Y and Z' and somehow know that Y and Z go together but that X is a separate unit.

--

incidentally, this is not a well-written problem; it has 2 issues that wouldn't pass muster on an official test. viz.:

1) 'they' is technically ambiguous (although easy to resolve with 'common sense'), a situation that the gmat would not tolerate. on the gmat, 'they' would undoubtedly be replaced by 'those images'.

2) in order to maintain parallelism (about which the gmat is downright religious in its zeal), you'd want to insert the between 'on' and 'construction'.


yihungkuo wrote:
2nd question:

In Greek theology the supreme being was Esaugetu Emissee (Master of Breath), who dwelt in an upper realm in which the sky was the floor, and who had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.

A. in which the sky was the floor, and who had the power to give and to take
...
The answer is "A", If I take the 2nd 'who' and the comma before it, is that correct?

In Greek theology the supreme being was Esaugetu Emissee (Master of Breath), who dwelt in an upper realm in which the sky was the floor and had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.
first, i gotta say, that's supposed to be Creek, not greek. the creeks are a native american tribe whose lands are in the american south. long live state-required junior high social studies classes! (fyi, the supreme being in greek mythology was zeus, although you probably know that.)

ok, let's talk about the actual question Smile

no, you absolutely can't take away that 'who'. if you take it away, you get ambiguity; the sentence can also be read this way (and in fact almost certainly will, because of the way our brains process words that are in close proximity to each other):
in which the sky was the floor and had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.
in other words, it appears that not only was the sky the floor, but the sky could also take or give life.
not good.

--

incidentally, an official question almost certainly would just say '...to give and take away', omitting the second 'to' (which is wholly unnecessary and wordy).

yihungkuo wrote:
Last question:

At the annual stockholders meeting, investors heard a presentation on the numerous challenges facing the company, including among them the threat from a rival's multibillion-dollar patent-infringement suit and the declining sales for the company's powerful microprocessor chip.

D. among them the threat of a rival's multibillion-dollar patent-infringement suit and the decline in sales of

The answer is "D". this doesnt sound right to me... it sounds like it should be:
among them "are" the threat of.....
no! no! no no no! if you do that, you're committing cardinal sin: you're creating what's called a 'comma splice'. you can never use a comma to connect two independent clauses, i.e., two clauses that can both stand alone as sentences. if a comma connects two clauses, some sort of conjunction is needed.

yihungkuo wrote:
Is "among them" the same as "including"? So can we fix answer "A" by removing the "among them" behind the "including" as follows:

including the threat from a rival's multibillion-dollar patentinfringement suit and the declining sales of
in this sort of context, those two are pretty much interchangeable, yeah. i happen to like 'including' better because it's more concise, but either is ok.

you example still wouldn't work as well as the correct answer, though, because its parallelism isn't as good. the parallelism in the correct answer is sublime:
among them the threat of a rival's multibillion-dollar patent-infringement suit and the decline in sales of...
that's beautiful. both halves of the parallel structure are '...the [abstract notion] of [concrete business/law concept]. parallelism doesn't get any better than that.
in your example, the parallelism falters, because you're comparing 'threat' to 'sales'. subtle, but enough to kill an answer choice on the real gmat; you have to be really, really, really picky to make sure that the two main nouns being compared are logically parallel.

if you don't mind, where'd you get these problems? the first two have some issues, but the last one has a pretty authentic feel to it.
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PostTue Mar 18, 2008 12:26 am
with the question dealing with the stockholders - I know b is wrong but it eliminates all ambiguity. All other answer choices have these and them but it looks like there are unclear antecedents.. please help
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yihungkuo
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PostTue Mar 18, 2008 2:22 am
Lunarpower,
Thank you for the detailed response. These questions are from a local gmat test prep publisher...

For the last question, so am I correct to say the comma splice issue can be resolved by simply adding a 'and' following the comma?

At the annual stockholders meeting, investors heard a presentation on the numerous challenges facing the company, and among them are the threat of a rival's multibillion-dollar patent-infringement suit and the decline in sales of the company's powerful microprocessor chip.

Doesn't sound too good in this sentence though...

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PostSun Oct 04, 2009 3:05 am
lunarpower wrote:
yihungkuo wrote:
2nd question:

In Greek theology the supreme being was Esaugetu Emissee (Master of Breath), who dwelt in an upper realm in which the sky was the floor, and who had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.

A. in which the sky was the floor, and who had the power to give and to take
...
The answer is "A", If I take the 2nd 'who' and the comma before it, is that correct?

In Greek theology the supreme being was Esaugetu Emissee (Master of Breath), who dwelt in an upper realm in which the sky was the floor and had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.
ok, let's talk about the actual question Smile

no, you absolutely can't take away that 'who'. if you take it away, you get ambiguity; the sentence can also be read this way (and in fact almost certainly will, because of the way our brains process words that are in close proximity to each other):
in which the sky was the floor and had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.
in other words, it appears that not only was the sky the floor, but the sky could also take or give life.
not good.

--

incidentally, an official question almost certainly would just say '...to give and take away', omitting the second 'to' (which is wholly unnecessary and wordy).
Hi Ron,

Can you please tell what may be the reson to kick out B, C, D and E in Q#2 ?

I kicked out based on the following reason....can you please confirm is this correct ?

B = wrong usage of where.
C = wrong tense has.
D = wrong usage of with modifier...modifies entire previous clause....as comma preposition modifies entire previous clause.
E = changes the meaning...says floor was sky...also wrongly uses comma + ing modifier.
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PostSun Oct 04, 2009 6:52 pm
in question 3, can you tell me why not E?
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PostSun Oct 04, 2009 8:42 pm
kiennguyen wrote:
in question 3, can you tell me why not E?
I guess because it contains These...which is wrong personal pronoun choice....

these should follow some description...

e.g. "these materials"
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