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Some hospitals

by amma4u » Wed Sep 01, 2010 6:09 pm
Some hospitals have doctors that take on different duties such as monitoring the wards, to act as a guardian sounding a warning at the first sign of a patient in danger, and receiving new patients who require hospitalization.

A to act as a guardian sounding
B to act as guardians and to sound
C to act as guardians and sound
D acting as guardians and to sound
E acting as guardians and sounding

I don't have the OA....sorry but would like to see each of the views.
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by diebeatsthegmat » Wed Sep 01, 2010 6:18 pm
amma4u wrote:Some hospitals have doctors that take on different duties such as monitoring the wards, to act as a guardian sounding a warning at the first sign of a patient in danger, and receiving new patients who require hospitalization.

A to act as a guardian sounding
B to act as guardians and to sound
C to act as guardians and sound
D acting as guardians and to sound
E acting as guardians and sounding

I don't have the OA....sorry but would like to see each of the views.
i would love to choose E but also dont like and between guardians and sounding... and should be replaced by a commas
A is not parelell
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by soms_ar » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:00 pm
i would choose "D" because monitoring, acting and receiving should be the ones that have to be parallel. to sound warnings is an action performed by the guardian and need not be parallel with the others.

Please do let me know if i have the wrong answer.
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by frank1 » Wed Sep 01, 2010 8:47 pm
i think both D and E have problems.....A,B,C out for non parellelism
In D
acting as guardians and to sound
and shows it is doctor who is doing the things ....he dances,plays and goes to school
even if was doctor....to breaks the parallelism


In E
and sounding .....and receiving ....
double and cause problem here i guess...

i think E wins....may be educated guess...
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by amma4u » Sat Sep 04, 2010 4:39 am
D it is... frank1 good job!
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by goyalsau » Sat Sep 04, 2010 5:31 am
I think if any Instructor can explain that why its not E, than that would help a lot to me and others like me over here.
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by gmat_perfect » Sat Sep 04, 2010 7:31 am
amma4u wrote:Some hospitals have doctors that take on different duties such as monitoring the wards, to act as a guardian sounding a warning at the first sign of a patient in danger, and receiving new patients who require hospitalization.

A to act as a guardian sounding
B to act as guardians and to sound
C to act as guardians and sound
D acting as guardians and to sound
E acting as guardians and sounding

I don't have the OA....sorry but would like to see each of the views.
First:

This sentence checks the use of " A, B and C, and D"

Where, the mid element will have two things in one.

Example:

I went to new marker and bought a red shirt, a black and white shirt, and a blue shirt.

A black and white --is a single element.

Now, come to the sentence:

In the element "acting and sounding", sound should not be parallel with the other elements. The main word "acting" should be parallel.

Now the question is whether we should use "to sound".

Yes, we should because "and sounding a warning" may be misled.

If we use "and sounding", one may seem that sounding is also an element of the series. In that sense, E can be eliminated.

Answer should be D.

NB. I am also in doubt about D and E.

Hope, experts will take the turn.
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by goyalsau » Sat Sep 04, 2010 7:47 am
Mr. Perfectionist ,

resplendent work.........

you have solved the puzzle,

thanks for the excellent explaination...
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by clawhammer » Sat Sep 04, 2010 9:33 am
gmat_perfect wrote:
In the element "acting and sounding", sound should not be parallel with the other elements. The main word "acting" should be parallel.

Now the question is whether we should use "to sound".

Yes, we should because "and sounding a warning" may be misled.

If we use "and sounding", one may seem that sounding is also an element of the series. In that sense, E can be eliminated.
Not helping me. The sentence is not using a comma within the element, that is it doesn't say: "acting as guardians, and sounding". The lack of comma confirms that this is not part of the other elements.

Like others said, "A, B and C, and D" - B and C are together as one element in the list. Any other reasons?
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by goyalsau » Sat Sep 04, 2010 11:55 am
I was just looking at my notes and find something very interesting, I am sure you guys just also like it.

Some bat caves, like honeybee hives, have residents that take on different duties such as defending the
entrance, acting as sentinels and to sound a warning at the approach of danger, and scouting outside the
cave for new food and roosting sites.
(A) acting as sentinels and to sound
(B) acting as sentinels and sounding
(C) to act as sentinels and sound
(D) to act as sentinels and to sound
(E) to act as a sentinel sounding




explaination - Because the verb phrases used to describe the bats' duties are governed by the phrase different duties such as, they should each be expressed in the present participial (or "-ing") form to parallel defending and scouting.
Choices A, C, D, and E all violate parallelism by employing infinitives (to...) in place of participial phrases. In E the singular sentinel is not consistent with residents, and the omission of and distorts the meaning of the
original. Only B, the best answer, preserves the sense of the original, uses the correct idiom, and observes the
parallelism required among and within the three main verb phrases.


Comments..........
its like a resolve the paradox..... situation......
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by frank1 » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:39 pm
By the way whats the source of this question ...
if it not from standard publisher,i think all options has got problem....(may not be correct logic but it is how it works...)
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by vishalj » Tue Sep 07, 2010 11:00 pm
IMO E

For the simple reason. Consider this example. I play mutliple roles in the football field such as "acting as a coach and showing red card to players", "bringing new recruits", and "changing sponsors".

The construction must meet the parallelism. In this case, the participle phases should be there before and after "and" cordinating conjunction. And the construction is not really awkward. It is telling us that a doctor qualifies to be a guardian becuase they warn at the first sign of danger.

I truly believe that the OA should be E.
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by ChrisBKnewton » Wed Sep 08, 2010 9:54 am
Hi all,

I would be interested to know the source of this question as well.

Seems like there's been a lot of discussion here, and it may be possible that this is not an entirely test-like question. However, I think it's worthwhile to condense some of what's been said and try to find the best answer from the choices.

A is incorrect. "Monitoring..., to act..., and receiving" is not a parallel construction.

B is incorrect for the same reason above.

C is incorrect for the same reason above.

Now here's where it gets tricky.

Both D and E use "acting" instead of "to act." "Monitoring... acting... and receiving" is a parallel construction. It comes down to whether "sounding" or "to sound" is correct in context.

The example and explanation goyalsau posted are right-on here.

Let's look at choice D: "acting as guardians and to sound".... There are two issues with this construction. As goyalsau's explanation says, the items in the list are all governed by the phrase "different duties such as." Therefore, all the items should be expressed in parallel form: in this case, present participles. "To sound" breaks this parallelism, both within the larger list and within the second item ("acting and to sound" is not a parallel construction.)

Choice E maintains the parallelism and thus is correct.

(A side note: This sentence would likely be a lot less confusing if semicolons rather than commas were used to separate the items in the list. In the real world, this usually occurs when items in a list are long or contain lots of commas/clauses themselves. This construction is not often seen on the GMAT - but it would certainly help to clarify meaning!)
Chris Black
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