vivek.kapoor83 wrote:23. A recent New York Times editorial criticized the city’s election board for, first of all, failing to replace outmoded voting machines prone to breakdowns, and secondarily, for their failure to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members.
(A) secondarily, for their failure to
(B) secondly, for their failure to
(C) secondly, that they failed and did not
(D) second, that they failed to
(E) second, for failing to


IMO : E becoz they have no ref in a,b,c,d. Am i right?
In reasoning

anju wrote:

vivek.kapoor83 wrote:23. A recent New York Times editorial criticized the city�s election board for, first of all, failing to replace outmoded voting machines prone to breakdowns, and secondarily, for their failure to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members.
(A) secondarily, for their failure to
(B) secondly, for their failure to
(C) secondly, that they failed and did not
(D) second, that they failed to
(E) second, for failing to


IMO : E becoz they have no ref in a,b,c,d. Am i right?
In reasoning

E for parallelism:
"failing to replace" parallel to "failing to investigate"

Onell wrote:

anju wrote:

vivek.kapoor83 wrote:23. A recent New York Times editorial criticized the city�s election board for, first of all, failing to replace outmoded voting machines prone to breakdowns, and secondarily, for their failure to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members.
(A) secondarily, for their failure to
(B) secondly, for their failure to
(C) secondly, that they failed and did not
(D) second, that they failed to
(E) second, for failing to


IMO : E becoz they have no ref in a,b,c,d. Am i right?
In reasoning

E for parallelism:
"failing to replace" parallel to "failing to investigate"

while the second 'for' may be redundant, it's not grammatically wrong to put it there. In a long sentence with many clauses in the middle, it might be even stylistically preferable to place it there - otherwise, 'and second, failing...' is a too abrupt throwback to the beginning of the parallel construction way back at the beginning of the sentence. I believe that it's too close to call here - meaning that you should not see an answer choice which is the same in every way as E, but merely omits the second 'for', since the decision between a complete parallel construction Vs. the conciseness principle is not clear cut. At the end of the day, we choose E because the other answer choices have the problematic plural pronoun with no plural noun to be referred to.


I agree with others that E might be the best answer.
But my question is,

election board for, first of all, failing to .... second, for failing...

Here if I am not wrong, "For" is not needed after the word "second" because the "for" after the word "board" is applicable for both first and second reasons as it is a parallel construction.

Could anyone please explain, why do we need another "for" .
Thanks.

vivek.kapoor83 wrote:23. A recent New York Times editorial criticized the city�s election board for, first of all, failing to replace outmoded voting machines prone to breakdowns, and secondarily, for their failure to investigate allegations of corruption involving board members.
(A) secondarily, for their failure to
(B) secondly, for their failure to
(C) secondly, that they failed and did not
(D) second, that they failed to
(E) second, for failing to


IMO : E becoz they have no ref in a,b,c,d. Am i right?
In reasoning