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GMAT Prep question - Parallelism

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by metallicafan » Sun Jan 22, 2012 5:35 pm
The Sports Medicine Programs of the Olympic Training Center, a complex where final try outs are held for athletes representing the US in the Olympics, is geared toward enhancing athletes' performance and toward their preparation for international competition.
A.) is geared toward enhancing athletes' performance and toward their preparation
B.) is geared to enhance the performance of athletes and to prepare them
C.) are geared to enhance athletes performance and their preparation
D.) are geared toward the enhancement of athletes' performance and toward preparing them
E.) are geared toward enhancing the performance of athletes and preparing them

I agree with the OA. However, I noticed something new to me: Why doesn't the choice E (the OA) repeat "toward" in the second element (preparing)? Based on my knowledge about parallelism, it should be "...and TOWARD preparing them."
I know that it is not necessary to repeat certain words in parallel structures. For instance: I like TO play drums, ride my mountain bike, and paint heavy metal pictures. (It's true!). As you can see, it is not necessary to repeat "to". I want to know whether is the same case when we use prepositions. My MGMAT SC book only talks about verbs, not prepositions.

Please, your help.
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by avik.ch » Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:19 pm
metallicafan wrote: I know that it is not necessary to repeat certain words in parallel structures. For instance: I like TO play drums, ride my mountain bike, and paint heavy metal pictures. (It's true!). As you can see, it is not necessary to repeat "to". I want to know whether is the same case when we use prepositions. My MGMAT SC book only talks about verbs, not prepositions.

Please, your help.
Your understanding is correct. The example you have mentioned - here its an infinitives. The same is applicable to propositions also. But, if you want to change the preposition then you have to repeat the whole phrase(preposition+noun).

Hope this helps !!
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by Anshu Nadir » Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:33 am
The Sports Medicine Programs of the Olympic Training Center, a complex where final try outs are held for athletes representing the US in the Olympics, is geared toward enhancing athletes' performance and toward their preparation for international competition.
A.) is geared toward enhancing athletes' performance and toward their preparation
B.) is geared to enhance the performance of athletes and to prepare them
C.) are geared to enhance athletes performance and their preparation
D.) are geared toward the enhancement of athletes' performance and toward preparing them
E.) are geared toward enhancing the performance of athletes and preparing them

Explantion:
A: Incorrect [SVA: The sports medicine programs....is]
B: Incorrect [SVA: The sports medicine programs....is]
C: Incorrect ["enhance athletes performance"should be either performance of athletes or athletes' performance]
D: Incorrect [parallelism not followed - enhancement/preparing]
E: correct [enhancing/preparing]

Regards,
Anshu Nadir
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by ArunangsuSahu » Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:46 am
(E)
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by EducationAisle » Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:39 am
Parallelism should decide which is the "common portion". In choice E, parallelism is clearly between "enhancing" and "preparing". So, E reads:

are geared toward (enhancing the performance of athletes) and (preparing them ...)

If the sentence was:

are geared toward enhancing the performance of athletes and morale of the depressed athletes.

Then the parallelism would have been between "performance of athletes" and "morale of the depressed athletes". So, it would have read:

are geared toward enhancing the (performance of athletes) and (morale of the depressed athletes).

If the sentence was:

are geared toward enhancing the performance and morale of the depressed athletes.

Then the parallelism would have been between "performance" and "morale". So, it would have read:

are geared toward enhancing the (performance) and (morale) of the depressed athletes.
Ashish
MBA - ISB, GMAT - 99th Percentile
GMAT Faculty @ EducationAisle
www.EducationAisle.com

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by ArunangsuSahu » Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:58 am
(E)
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