Hello Everyone!

This is a great example of a GMAT question that focuses on parallelism! Let's start by taking a quick look at the original question, and then highlight any major differences between the options in orange:

As criminal activity on the Internet becomes more and more sophisticated, not only are thieves able to divert cash from company bank accounts, they can also pilfer valuable information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans, and sell the data to competitors.

(A) they can also pilfer valuable information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans, and sell
(B) they can also pilfer valuable information that includes business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans, and selling
(C) also pilfering valuable information including business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans, selling
(D) but also pilfer valuable information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans to sell
(E) but also pilfering valuable information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans and selling

After a quick glance over our options, a few key differences jump out that we can focus on:

1. they can also pilfer / also pilfering / but also pilfer / but also pilfer (Parallelism)
2. such as / that includes / including (Idioms & Meaning)
3. and sell / and selling / selling / to sell (Parallelism)

Let's start off with #1 and #3 on our list because they both deal with the same issue: parallelism! Whenever you see a list on the GMAT, it's a good idea to do a quick check for parallelism because that's a pretty common issue with list questions! When we look at the original sentence, we can see that this is a somewhat complex list:

As criminal activity on the Internet becomes more and more sophisticated, not only are thieves able to divert cash from company bank accounts, they can also pilfer valuable information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans, and sell the data to competitors.

We need to ask ourselves "What are thieves able to do?":

1. divert cash from company bank accounts
2. pilfer information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans
3. sell data to competitors

Let's check each of our options to make sure each item on the list is worded using parallel structure. We already know that the word "divert" stays the same because it's not underlined...which is a hint for how the other items should be worded! Let's see how they break down:

(A) they can also pilfer valuable information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans, and sell --> divert / pilfer / sell = PARALLEL

(B) they can also pilfer valuable information that includes business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans, and selling --> divert / pilfer / selling = NOT PARALLEL

(C) also pilfering valuable information including business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans, selling --> divert / pilfering / selling = NOT PARALLEL

(D) but also pilfer valuable information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans to sell --> divert / pilfer / to sell = NOT PARALLEL
(This is also incorrect because by eliminating the comma after "plans," it changes the meaning. It now pushes together "contract bidding plans," which should be part of item #2 on our list, and "to sell the data to competitors," which needs to be a separate item.)

(E) but also pilfering valuable information such as business development strategies, new product specifications, and contract bidding plans and selling --> divert / pilfering / selling = NOT PARALLEL


There you go - option A is the only one that uses parallelism with this list question! By focusing on common problems with list questions, we were able to narrow down wrong answers rather quickly!


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