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Parallel structure: confusing

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by gmatmachoman » Tue Dec 21, 2010 10:56 pm
Stuart Kovinsky wrote:
Awais wrote:As envisioned by researchers, commercial farming of lobsters will enable fisheries to sell the shellfish year-round, taking advantage of off-season demand, standardize its sizes and colors, and to predict sales volume in advance.

(A) taking advantage of off-season demand, standardize
(B) taking advantage of off-season demand, to standardize
(C) taking advantage of off-season demand, standardizing
(D) take advantage of off-season demand, standardizing
(E) take advantage of off-season demand, to standardize

Is not E correct answer, to match the parallel structure?
(e) is NOT actually parallel.

If we look at the 4 verbs on the list, we have:

TO sell, take advantage, standardize and TO predict.

The "to" in front of predict destroys the paralellism. To fix the problem, we need to add "to" to every item in the list.

(b) fixes the problem by adding "to" in front of standardize and by changing "take" to "taking" (which is fine, since it's presented as a parenthetical comment modifying the previous item on the list). The list in (b) is:

To sell, to standardize and to predict,

which is parallel.
@Stuart,


Are the items that are paralel aren't infinitives acting as "verbals"??
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by thebigkats » Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:10 pm
Answer B.
Reason - Parallelism

Consider following sentence (after replacing the underlined portion with #b)

As envisioned by researchers, commercial farming of lobsters will enable fisheries to sell the shellfish year-round, taking advantage of off-season demand, to standardize its sizes and colors, and to predict sales volume in advance

we can read it as:
... enable fisheries to sell the shellfish year-round, [taking advantage of off-season demand], to standardize its sizes and colors, and to predict ...
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by gayu » Tue Apr 05, 2011 5:08 am
sdas0112 wrote:Whats wrong with c?

TO sell, taking advantage, standardizing and TO predict.
I was also thinking of choice C because I thought taking and standardizing are parallel...
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by saketk » Sat Sep 03, 2011 10:04 am
+1 for B
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by zander21 » Wed Sep 07, 2011 11:25 am
really like this question - the answer is b. keep em' coming!

Does anyone know approximately how many of the SC questions involve parallel? any data on what percentage and what topics are mostly tested. for example, weaken conclusion are most common for CR, as a general tendency of the GMAT gods.
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by JS_2 » Sun Sep 11, 2011 9:28 pm
My Ans is B.

Parallel structure is corrected in B by placing "to" in front of standardize which is parallel to "to predict"
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by navami » Sun Sep 11, 2011 9:45 pm
IMO B
This time no looking back!!!
Navami
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by olegpoi » Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:02 pm
Looks it has got to be B.

parallelism: to sell, taking advantage, to standardize and to predict

I sort out A,C and D right away.
E to should go before take advantage to support parallelism
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by gunjan1208 » Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:53 am
I chose B. In case of E you might get confused understand this a parallel but what sense does "take" imply? I clearly ruins the meaning and parallelism. B solves issue at hand.




Gunjan
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by prashant misra » Fri Sep 16, 2011 10:31 pm
i chose the answer option D.can anyone explain this question once again as its a confusing one.
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by parul9 » Fri Oct 07, 2011 11:59 pm
IMO B
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by asgupta2k » Mon Oct 10, 2011 6:34 pm
(B) looks like the correct answer
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by Deependra1 » Tue Nov 08, 2011 2:39 am
Answer c
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by zeusunlimited » Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:34 am
'Taking advantage of off-season demand' is a modifier for 'to sell all year around' and thus isnt parallel. B is the right answer
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by Sharma_Gaurav » Mon Jan 02, 2012 5:17 am
option B is correct. It is the only paraller choice.
to sell fisheries, standardising xyz, and to standardize its size and to predict.
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