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Gods!

by vinay1983 » Sat Sep 07, 2013 10:20 pm
Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping

(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping

(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help

(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

The OA is A. My doubt is "in healing parallel to thanking", because that is what the explanation says!

How can this be parallel?I have not come across such constructions till now. Is this a regular feature (usage of such parallel phrases)?
Last edited by vinay1983 on Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by [email protected] » Sun Sep 08, 2013 12:34 am
Hi vinay1983,

This SC is based on one obvious parallelism rule and one rarer style rule:

1) The word "either" must be followed by "or" and have parallel elements. Since the SC has "either asking", the word that follows "or" should be "verb-ing". Eliminate B, C and D

2) Neither "aid in healing" nor "aid to heal" sounds great, but the intent is that the supplicants probably asked the goddess for help at more than one point in the past, so an "-ing" verb would be appropriate. Eliminate E

Final Answer: A

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by sana.noor » Sun Sep 08, 2013 4:12 am
"either -or" is must so drop B and C
drop all infinitives as these are used for intentions--however, i feel this sentence is about past actions and ing-form is must. so drop D and E
A is the right one
by the way "aid in" is the right idiom.
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by sana.noor » Sun Sep 08, 2013 4:14 am
vinay1983 please use spoiler button to hide answer.
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by ani781 » Sun Sep 08, 2013 5:05 pm
drop all infinitives as these are used for intentions
hi Sana, can you please elaborate on this. Thanks.
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by sana.noor » Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:38 pm
i want to go to Australia...u r showing ur intentions but u'rnt going actually
in above example the important issue is the use of "aid in" when the activity is designed with any noun or noun phrase use "aid in" rather with an infinitive.
for example: X received Y's aid in rebuilding emergency room of hospital
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by Java_85 » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:11 pm
I was stocked between A and E, but the fact that we use +ing if an action was done more than one point in the past time ==> A
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by vinay1983 » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:19 pm
sana.noor wrote:vinay1983 please use spoiler button to hide answer.
Yes, orders taken, actually I was more concerned about the query rather than about the answer.
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by \'manpreet singh » Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:49 pm
vinay1983 wrote:Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping(Wrong idiom used its either...or)

(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping

(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help(parallelism error here, it should "either asking.... or thanking")

(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help(Sounds correct to me," in healing" and "to heal" both sound appropriate)

The OA is A. My doubt is "in healing parallel to thanking", because that is what the explanation says!

How can this be parallel?I have not come across such constructions till now. Is this a regular feature (usage of such parallel phrases)?
I have doubts in options A and E

How is "in healing" better than "to heal"??.Rich i am still not able to get your explanation. Gosh!! these subtle styling issues are hard to apply.

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by [email protected] » Mon Sep 09, 2013 12:35 pm
Hi manpreet singh,

Verbs that end in -ing are sometimes used to refer to actions that were not limited to one point in time.

Consider these two sentences:

eg The janitor cleaned the office.

This wording implies that the janitor cleaned the office once.

eg The janitor's primary responsibility was cleaning the office.

This wording implies that the janitor cleaned the office more than once.

The original sentence mentions "supplicants who were either asking..." - notice the word "asking" - implies that they were "asking" more than once. The whole sentence implies activities that happened more than once. This should help you to pick answer A.

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by \'manpreet singh » Tue Sep 10, 2013 8:54 am
Thanks Rich ,i think i got it.Will make a note of it.

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