Generally you want parallel construction when:

1:: You're making a comparison ("Studying is less fun than surfing", not "To study is less fun than surfing.")

2:: You're combining two complete sentences into one ("Matt is studying right now, but he'd rather be surfing", not "Matt is studying right now, but surfing is what he'd rather be doing.")

3:: You have a list of items or actions ("Matt likes surfing, skiing, and biking", not "Matt likes surfing, to ski, and when he gets to bike around the mountains.")

Whether you NEED parallel construction is dictated by the answer choices you have (do they actual give you parallel options with no other errors?) and whether you have the same subject (or comparable subjects) throughout the sentence. For instance, a sentence such as "Mistakes were made, but Matt decided to press ahead anyway" is fine, even though it has passive voice then active voice, as Matt didn't make those mistakes (as far as we know ).

Matt@VeritasPrep wrote:Generally you want parallel construction when:

1:: You're making a comparison ("Studying is less fun than surfing", not "To study is less fun than surfing.")

2:: You're combining two complete sentences into one ("Matt is studying right now, but he'd rather be surfing", not "Matt is studying right now, but surfing is what he'd rather be doing.")

3:: You have a list of items or actions ("Matt likes surfing, skiing, and biking", not "Matt likes surfing, to ski, and when he gets to bike around the mountains.")

Whether you NEED parallel construction is dictated by the answer choices you have (do they actual give you parallel options with no other errors?) and whether you have the same subject (or comparable subjects) throughout the sentence. For instance, a sentence such as "Mistakes were made, but Matt decided to press ahead anyway" is fine, even though it has passive voice then active voice, as Matt didn't make those mistakes (as far as we know ).

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your reply.

I got everything except the second point. Could you make make it more easy to me( )?

Ex: The Shuttle launch TOOK place flawlessly and WAS SEEN on television.
Is the above example correct ?, since they are combining two complete sentences into one(1->Shuttle launch took place & 2->shuttle launch was seen on television). parallelism must be applied here right ?

Thanks & Regards,
Uva.