SC 1000 #106

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SC 1000 #106

by f2001290 » Mon Apr 30, 2007 2:54 am
Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea’s aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help
(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping
(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping
(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help
(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

Why A and not E? What is the difference between "in healing" and "to heal"?

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by Cybermusings » Mon Apr 30, 2007 3:19 am
Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea’s aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help
(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping
(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping
(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help
(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

A is the only sentence which preserves the parallelism

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by pepeprepa » Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:40 pm
asking the goddess Bona Dea’s aid in healing

Can someone tell me why "in" is used? Is it an idom or... ?

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by 2008 » Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:54 pm
isn't it E the correct one?

either asking ----- parallel to ---- or thanking


while TO HEAL is much better than IN HEALING


in healing doesnt need to be parallel with asking, i think that's the trick

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by yogesh_kkk » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:46 pm
aid in is correct idiom
either or is also correct
Therefore A

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by pepeprepa » Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:45 am
OA is A

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by eccentric » Thu Aug 07, 2008 2:34 am
why is nt D correct

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by drgmatIL » Thu Aug 07, 2008 2:53 am
eccentric wrote:why is nt D correct
either asking ... or thanking....

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by pepeprepa » Thu Aug 07, 2008 6:14 am
I don't find the idiom "aid in" in any dictionnary, can someone give the way it is used?

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by rabab » Thu Oct 16, 2008 10:47 am
I came up with E. Any more explanations? Seems like instructors are not very interested to reply to the SCs' at all! :roll:

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by dadagreat » Thu Oct 16, 2008 11:10 am

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by vietmoi999 » Fri May 23, 2014 11:30 pm
this question is locked on gmatclub forum. why? it is too difficult for us or this is a gmac mistake. why dose no experts comment?

why E is wrong?

"to heal " in E shows that "supplicants ask aid to heal", "supplicants ask aid so that they can heal"

in A

it is possible that the goddess heal. or it is possible that both supplicants and goddess do the healing.

this meaning is more logic

however, I feel this question is hard and I wish experts, friends comment on my above explanation.
If anyone in this gmat forum is in England, pls email to me([email protected]) . I have some problems and need your advise. Thank a lot

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by [email protected] » Wed Apr 17, 2019 2:35 pm
Hello Everyone!

Let's take a look at this question, one problem at a time, and narrow it down to the right answer quickly! To begin, here is the original sentence, and we've highlighted the major differences between the options in orange:

Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help
(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping
(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping
(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help
(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

After taking a quick glance over the options, there are a few places we can focus on to narrow down our options:

1. in healing / to heal (Idioms)
2. and / or (Idioms)
3. thanking / to thank (Parallelism)
4. such help / helping (Parallelism)


Since a majority of this deals with Idioms & Parallelism, let's focus on that for now! If we look closely at the original sentence, we can spot the idiom we're dealing with:

Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

The idiom we need to work with is:

either X or Y

Let's focus just on the idiom structure for now. We'll deal with parallelism later. Here is how they break down:

(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help --> either X or Y = OK
(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping --> either X and Y = WRONG
(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping --> either X and Y = WRONG
(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help --> either X or Y = OK
(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help --> either X or Y = OK

We can eliminate options B & C because they don't use "either X or Y" correctly.

Now that we have it narrowed down to only 3 options, let's focus on parallelism. Remember that X and Y both need to be parallel in structure, wording, verb tense, and number. To make this easier, I'm going to add the first half of the idiom ("either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aide"). Here's how things break down when we focus on parallelism:

(A) either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help
(D) either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help
(E) either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

We can eliminate option D because it doesn't use parallel structure in the idiom "either X or Y." This leaves us with only 2 options left, so let's focus on what's different about each one to determine which is the better option:

(A) aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

This is CORRECT! We're dealing with another idiom here. The proper way to say this is to "aid in verb-ing."

(E) aid to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

This is INCORRECT because the proper idiom is "aid in verb-ing," not "aid to verb."


There you go - option A was correct all along!


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