Optimus Prime wrote:The problem is from GMAT PREP

hmm
i did some searching on the web and found that this problem is from "gmat sets" -- older, secondhand questions.
while most of the problems in those sets are decent, many of them reflect priorities and/or writing conventions that are no longer seen in current questions, so i'd hesitate to draw any strong conclusions from this problem.

are you saying that this problem is in the current edition of GMAT PREP? if so, are there any existing screenshots that you (or anyone else) could upload as proof?

gmatdriller wrote:Hi Ron,
The question is indeed from the current version of GMATPrep.
I have attached a copy as evidence.

Thanks as I look forward to your informative contributions.

ok. well, if i were you, i would just remember this construction for the future.

the poster above is correct, though: even though this sentence features a very weird construction, it can still be solved with garden-variety parallelism.
in fact, in this problem it's extra clear that the correct answer is the one that's most parallel; the other four choices are nowhere close to being properly parallel. i have the feeling they may have done this to make up for the strangeness of the construction; i.e., because the construction of the whole sentence is rather unfamiliar, they made the parallelism extra obvious in order to make up for that.