Sentence Correction

A. Sal applied himself in his new job, arriving early every day, skipping lunch regularly, AND leaving late every night.

B. Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

Pick the correct option and Explain why it is correct and the other is wrong ?

bhumika.k.shah wrote:A. Sal applied himself in his new job, arriving early every day, skipping lunch regularly, AND leaving late every night.

B. Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

Pick the correct option and Explain why it is correct and the other is wrong ?

B is correct --shows correct parallelism
applied himself .......arrived early.......skipped lunch......left late every night.

A --lacks parallelism

bhumika.k.shah wrote:A. Sal applied himself in his new job, arriving early every day, skipping lunch regularly, AND leaving late every night.

B. Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

Pick the correct option and Explain why it is correct and the other is wrong ?

In (A) the 'ing' participle phrases (marked in red) are all parallel. The main clause 'applied himself in his new job' is not parallel to these 'ing' participle phrases. Hence this is correct. The main verb is 'applied' and 'ing' phrases supply additional information about how SAL applied himself.

In (B) all the activities (marked in red) are given equal emphasis, instead of making the last three activities subordinate to the MAIN activity '(applied himself) to his job'. Hence this is wrong.

Hope this helps : )

I would go with A.

Read carefully and slowly .You will get the reason why A is better.

arriving...,skipping ,leaving are his regular activity.

I get what you are saying. But how will we know which one is the main verb and which ones are providing additional info ?

Like hrishi, even i picked B . coz we generally look out for parallelism.

How to realise that wont always be the case. ?????

komal wrote:

bhumika.k.shah wrote:A. Sal applied himself in his new job, arriving early every day, skipping lunch regularly, AND leaving late every night.

B. Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

Pick the correct option and Explain why it is correct and the other is wrong ?

In (A) the 'ing' participle phrases (marked in red) are all parallel. The main clause 'applied himself in his new job' is not parallel to these 'ing' participle phrases. Hence this is correct. The main verb is 'applied' and 'ing' phrases supply additional information about how SAL applied himself.

In (B) all the activities (marked in red) are given equal emphasis, instead of making the last three activities subordinate to the MAIN activity '(applied himself) to his job'. Hence this is wrong.

Hope this helps : )

komal wrote:

bhumika.k.shah wrote:A. Sal applied himself in his new job, arriving early every day, skipping lunch regularly, AND leaving late every night.

B. Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

Pick the correct option and Explain why it is correct and the other is wrong ?

In (A) the 'ing' participle phrases (marked in red) are all parallel. The main clause 'applied himself in his new job' is not parallel to these 'ing' participle phrases. Hence this is correct. The main verb is 'applied' and 'ing' phrases supply additional information about how SAL applied himself.

In (B) all the activities (marked in red) are given equal emphasis, instead of making the last three activities subordinate to the MAIN activity '(applied himself) to his job'. Hence this is wrong.

Hope this helps : )

I agree, but why can't we give equal emphasis to all the four? All the things could be the different activities.
Is B not a sentence?

bhumika.k.shah wrote:A. Sal applied himself in his new job, arriving early every day, skipping lunch regularly, AND leaving late every night.

B. Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

Pick the correct option and Explain why it is correct and the other is wrong ?

My pick is A. you can find almost similar example in Manhattan SC.

He traveled the whole country while eating apples, drinking water and sleeping on road sides. The catch here is that list of items are in same tense and forming perfect parallelism.

If you change the traveled to traveling or list tenses (ate,drank, slept)then the whole meaning changes..Hope this helps.

prinit wrote: My pick is A. you can find almost similar example in Manhattan SC

It is directly pulled out from Manhattan SC

bhumika.k.shah wrote:

prinit wrote: My pick is A. you can find almost similar example in Manhattan SC

It is directly pulled out from Manhattan SC

great Job

hrishi19884 wrote:
I agree, but why can't we give equal emphasis to all the four? All the things could be the different activities.
Is B not a sentence?

because 'APPLIED HIMSELF TO HIS NEW JOB' is clearly the MAIN Clause & other 3 are PARTICIPLE PHRASES. If equal emphasis is given to MAIN CLAUSE and PARTICIPLE CLAUSE it would distort the meaning of the sentence to superficially parallel version as demonstrated by (B) here.

Hope this helps : )

komal wrote:

hrishi19884 wrote:
I agree, but why can't we give equal emphasis to all the four? All the things could be the different activities.
Is B not a sentence?

because 'APPLIED HIMSELF TO HIS NEW JOB' is clearly the MAIN Clause & other 3 are PARTICIPLE PHRASES. If equal emphasis is given to MAIN CLAUSE and PARTICIPLE CLAUSE it would distort the meaning of the sentence to superficially parallel version as demonstrated by (B) here.

Hope this helps : )

@Bhumika.Shah,

I agree with Komal. U need to look in to Manahattan SC Guide for " Superficial Parallelism Vs Actual Parallelism".

This is a frequent topic where we miss out ..Even OG 10 has couple of good ones on this content.

prinit wrote:

bhumika.k.shah wrote:A. Sal applied himself in his new job, arriving early every day, skipping lunch regularly, AND leaving late every night.

B. Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

Pick the correct option and Explain why it is correct and the other is wrong ?

My pick is A. you can find almost similar example in Manhattan SC.

He traveled the whole country while eating apples, drinking water and sleeping on road sides. The catch here is that list of items are in same tense and forming perfect parallelism.

If you change the traveled to traveling or list tenses (ate,drank, slept)then the whole meaning changes..Hope this helps.

He traveled the whole country while eating apples, drinking water and sleeping on road sides.

In this example that you have given - there is no comma after "country" but there is a comma in original sentence which changes the meaning

Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

If we replace that comma with "while" that you have done above in your exmaple....then A is correct.

since there is a comma directly after "job" - -- it indicates that it is one of the many activities. Hence B should be the answer

Dear Hrishi,

The dictionary meaning of apply oneself in something is to devote (oneself or one's efforts) to something = his new job in this case .

Now the meaning of the sentence is ---- Sal devoted himself in his new job (by) arriving early every day,(by) skipping lunch regularly and (by) leaving late every night.

Hope this clears out your doubt

hrishi19884 wrote:

prinit wrote:

bhumika.k.shah wrote:
A. Sal applied himself in his new job, arriving early every day, skipping lunch regularly, AND leaving late every night.

B. Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

Pick the correct option and Explain why it is correct and the other is wrong ?

My pick is A. you can find almost similar example in Manhattan SC.

He traveled the whole country while eating apples, drinking water and sleeping on road sides. The catch here is that list of items are in same tense and forming perfect parallelism.

If you change the traveled to traveling or list tenses (ate,drank, slept)then the whole meaning changes..Hope this helps.

He traveled the whole country while eating apples, drinking water and sleeping on road sides.

In this example that you have given - there is no comma after "country" but there is a comma in original sentence which changes the meaning

Sal applied himself in his new job,arrived early every day, skipped lunch regularly, AND left late every night.

If we replace that comma with "while" that you have done above in your exmaple....then A is correct.

since there is a comma directly after "job" - -- it indicates that it is one of the many activities. Hence B should be the answer

gmatmachoman wrote:

komal wrote:

hrishi19884 wrote:
I agree, but why can't we give equal emphasis to all the four? All the things could be the different activities.
Is B not a sentence?

because 'APPLIED HIMSELF TO HIS NEW JOB' is clearly the MAIN Clause & other 3 are PARTICIPLE PHRASES. If equal emphasis is given to MAIN CLAUSE and PARTICIPLE CLAUSE it would distort the meaning of the sentence to superficially parallel version as demonstrated by (B) here.

Hope this helps : )

@Bhumika.Shah,

I agree with Komal. U need to look in to Manahattan SC Guide for " Superficial Parallelism Vs Actual Parallelism".

This is a frequent topic where we miss out ..Even OG 10 has couple of good ones on this content.

Can I write ---- I learned English, studied Spanish and wrote French.

Is this a wrong sentence?

What if I write -- I learned English while studying Spanish and writing French
I learned English, studying Spanish and writing French

which is correct? "While" is better or "comma"

hrishi19884 wrote: U need to STRONGLY look in to Manahattan SC Guide for " Superficial Parallelism Vs Actual Parallelism".

Trust me it will clear your doubt!!!

IF still not , do get back to this post