Sentence Correction

State lawmakers are considering a law allowing children of divorced parents as young as seven to choose the parent with whom they will live, which will likely dissuade those parents from disciplining or punishing their children.

A. allowing children of divorced parents as young as seven to choose the parent with whom they will live, which will likely dissuade those parents

B. that would allow children as young as seven whose parents are divorced to choose the parent with whom they will live, a policy that would likely dissuade those parents

C. that would allow children of divorced parents as young as seven to choose the parent that they will live with, a policy that will likely dissuade their parents

D. allowing children as young as seven whose parents are divorced to choose the parent who they will live with, likely dissuading those parents

E. that will allow children as young as seven with divorced parents to choose which parent with whom to live, a policy likely dissuading their parents

The OA is B

In the end I understand that the other choices are worse than the OA but I got confused by the "considering a law that ..., a policy that ... " Is that really parallel? Shouldn't it be just considering a law that ..., and that ... "

garuhape wrote:State lawmakers are considering a law allowing children of divorced parents as young as seven to choose the parent with whom they will live, which will likely dissuade those parents from disciplining or punishing their children.

A. allowing children of divorced parents as young as seven to choose the parent with whom they will live, which will likely dissuade those parents

B. that would allow children as young as seven whose parents are divorced to choose the parent with whom they will live, a policy that would likely dissuade those parents

C. that would allow children of divorced parents as young as seven to choose the parent that they will live with, a policy that will likely dissuade their parents

D. allowing children as young as seven whose parents are divorced to choose the parent who they will live with, likely dissuading those parents

E. that will allow children as young as seven with divorced parents to choose which parent with whom to live, a policy likely dissuading their parents

The OA is B

In the end I understand that the other choices are worse than the OA but I got confused by the "considering a law that ..., a policy that ... " Is that really parallel? Shouldn't it be just considering a law that ..., and that ... "

State lawmakers are considering a law, which hasn't been enacted - and so it should refer to a hypothetical future - and hence "that would allow" is correct tense. -> choices B and C remain


As written in choices A and C-...divorced parents as young as seven....- it implies as though the parents are as young as seven.

B is the right answer.

D - also incorrectly uses who - ...the parent who they will live with...it should use whom instead

E - has a very awkward construction.

Furthermore, in choice B the part before the comma is a complete sentence and makes sense. The part after comma -- a policy that would likely .... is a modifier for the law and is additional information. These two parts are not connected by a conjunction, and the question is not that of parallelism.

The sentence could also be correctly written as what you propose - where the two parts are joined by a conjunction and, and are parallel.

You can view "a policy" as apposition, if it helps:

State lawmakers are considering a law that would do stuff, a policy that would likely have effects.

There is no parallelism here.

A law that would allow x [spoiler]and [that would] y[/spoiler], a policy that would x [spoiler]and [that would] y[/spoiler]

[that would] can be omitted.