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Ron's favorite SC: I have a question

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Ron's favorite SC: I have a question

by bpolley00 » Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:48 pm
The yield per acre of coffee berries varies enormously in that a single tree, depending on both its size and on climate and altitude, could produce enough berries to make between one and twelve pounds of dried beans a year.
A. enormously in that a single tree, depending on both its size and on climate and altitude, could produce
B. enormously in that a single tree, dependent on its size and also on climate and altitude, is able to produce
C. enormously, because a single tree, depending on its size and on climate and altitude, is able to produce
D. enormously, because a single tree, being dependent on its size, climate, and altitude, is capable of producing
E. enormously, because a single tree, dependent both on its size as well as on climate and altitude, could produce

Ron, or another expert, I got this question correct with C; however, what is the deal with the parallelism? On its size and On clime and altitude . Why is that allowed as it is not perfectly parallel? I know this is a miniscule question, but if that is allowed I need to notate that under my parallelism rules I am attempting to follow.

Thanks
-BP
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by ceilidh.erickson » Fri Feb 08, 2013 7:31 am
When it comes to parallelism, you want to make sure that the elements being compared - nouns, verbs, or modifiers - are parallel, but that doesn't mean that you have to force whole structures to look exactly alike!

Here, we want to say that the yield of a tree depends on two things: A) size, and B) climate and altitude. These are both nouns, so it makes sense to compare them. We want our structure to say "depending on (A) and (B)."

Your question, as I understand it, is - why is it ok to have ITS in one element, but not in the other? Well, we don't have to make the parallel elements look exactly alike, as long as the meaning is clear. We're talking about the size of a particular tree, so we need the possessive "its" to specify that it's the size that belongs to this particular tree. If we just said "depending on size," that would be too vague/general. We don't use the possessive "its" for climate and altitude, however, because those are not particular to the tree - they're the climate and altitude of the whole region, so they should be general.

The nouns here are parallel - it's fine to compare "size" to "climate and altitude." The possessive is there for meaning clarification, so it doesn't have to match. If it matched, it would change the meaning!

The same is often true for articles. See more here: https://www.beatthegmat.com/gmat-prep-qu ... tml#554171
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
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by bpolley00 » Mon Feb 18, 2013 2:04 pm
Thanks so much Ceilidh for your clear, concise explanation.
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