Parallelism, can someone explain it in general terms

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Osirus@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1578; Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:02 amFollowed by: 34 members; Thanked: 128 times; GMAT Score:760

by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Tue Feb 09, 2010 6:52 am

I am having trouble recognizing parallelism when no parallel markers are present. Can someone explain what it means for a sentence to be logically paralell. I understand how to make something structurally parallel, but what does it mean to make something logically paralell, and how can I recognize when I need to make something paralell when no markers are present?

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Tue Feb 09, 2010 6:52 am

bhumika.k.shah: Legendary Member; Posts: 941; Joined: Sun Dec 27, 2009 12:28 amFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 20 times

by bhumika.k.shah » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:37 am

I was just going to tell you to please throw some light on parallelism and modifiers in ur blog. As these two topics can get quite confusing with regards to the rules mentioned in the MGMAT books.

Can someone please give a de-brief on these two topics

osirus0830 wrote:I am having trouble recognizing parallelism when no parallel markers are present. Can someone explain what it means for a sentence to be logically paralell. I understand how to make something structurally parallel, but what does it mean to make something logically paralell, and how can I recognize when I need to make something paralell when no markers are present?

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Osirus@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1578; Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:02 amFollowed by: 34 members; Thanked: 128 times; GMAT Score:760

by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:38 am

bhumika.k.shah wrote:I was just going to tell you to please throw some light on parallelism and modifiers in ur blog. As these two topics can get quite confusing with regards to the rules mentioned in the MGMAT books.

Can someone please give a de-brief on these two topics

osirus0830 wrote:I am having trouble recognizing parallelism when no parallel markers are present. Can someone explain what it means for a sentence to be logically paralell. I understand how to make something structurally parallel, but what does it mean to make something logically paralell, and how can I recognize when I need to make something paralell when no markers are present?

I can explain modifiers. Those aren't complicated as soon as you are able to identify prepositions, adverbs, and adjectives. Parallelism is a different beast though

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hrishi19884: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 407; Joined: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:20 amFollowed by: 1 member; Location: India; Thanked: 20 times

by hrishi19884 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:22 am

osirus0830 wrote:
bhumika.k.shah wrote:I was just going to tell you to please throw some light on parallelism and modifiers in ur blog. As these two topics can get quite confusing with regards to the rules mentioned in the MGMAT books.

Can someone please give a de-brief on these two topics

osirus0830 wrote:I am having trouble recognizing parallelism when no parallel markers are present. Can someone explain what it means for a sentence to be logically paralell. I understand how to make something structurally parallel, but what does it mean to make something logically paralell, and how can I recognize when I need to make something paralell when no markers are present?
I can explain modifiers. Those aren't complicated as soon as you are able to identify prepositions, adverbs, and adjectives. Parallelism is a different beast though

haha ....not a beast though .....can say wife of "GMAT"(always there in GMAT)....and mostly comes to our rescue.

Actually, I would also love to see if some one throws some light on parallelism especially when no parallel markers are present or logically parallel case(as indicate by osirus)

Hrishi

"As you sow, so shall you reap"

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ldoolitt: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 184; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:23 am; Location: Madison, WI; Thanked: 17 times

by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:47 am

Not totally sure of the topic. Could you give an example of a logically parallel question? Are you talking like temporally parallel?

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Osirus@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1578; Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:02 amFollowed by: 34 members; Thanked: 128 times; GMAT Score:760

by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:52 am

ldoolitt wrote:Not totally sure of the topic. Could you give an example of a logically parallel question? Are you talking like temporally parallel?

sure, an example of logical parallelism would be

"John is running in the marathon and participating in the triatholon"

In that sentence John's actions have to be parallel. I was able to spot the need for parallelism because of the parallel marker "and", I have difficult knowing that parallelism is needed when no markers are present.

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ldoolitt: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 184; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:23 am; Location: Madison, WI; Thanked: 17 times

by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:56 am

osirus0830 wrote:
ldoolitt wrote:Not totally sure of the topic. Could you give an example of a logically parallel question? Are you talking like temporally parallel?
sure, an example of logical parallelism would be

"John is running in the marathon and participating in the triatholon"

In that sentence John's actions have to be parallel. I was able to spot the need for parallelism because of the parallel marker "and", I have difficult knowing that parallelism is needed when no markers are present.

That's not a structurally parallel example (running...participating)? I guess I am confused as to how you are partitioning structurally and logically parallel sentences.

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Osirus@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1578; Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:02 amFollowed by: 34 members; Thanked: 128 times; GMAT Score:760

by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:58 am

ldoolitt wrote:
osirus0830 wrote:
ldoolitt wrote:Not totally sure of the topic. Could you give an example of a logically parallel question? Are you talking like temporally parallel?
sure, an example of logical parallelism would be

"John is running in the marathon and participating in the triatholon"

In that sentence John's actions have to be parallel. I was able to spot the need for parallelism because of the parallel marker "and", I have difficult knowing that parallelism is needed when no markers are present.
That's not a structurally parallel example (running...participating)? I guess I am confused as to how you are partitioning structurally and logically parallel sentences.

Oh, sorry about that. It is structurally parallel. The logical parallelism in that sentence is that you have to make the actions of John parallel. The two actions must be made structurally parallel. I guess my question is how do you know what to make structurally parallel? The book says to look for what two or more items must be logically parallel to find out what to make structurally parllel, but if I can't recognize what needs to be logically parallel, I can never get to that step.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-retake-o ... 51414.html

Brandon Dorsey
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Veritas Prep

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ldoolitt: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 184; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:23 am; Location: Madison, WI; Thanked: 17 times

by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:22 am

osirus0830 wrote:
Oh, sorry about that. It is structurally parallel. The logical parallelism in that sentence is that you have to make the actions of John parallel. The two actions must be made structurally parallel. I guess my question is how do you know what to make structurally parallel? The book says to look for what two or more items must be logically parallel to find out what to make structurally parllel, but if I can't recognize what needs to be logically parallel, I can never get to that step.

No worries. I was just trying to understand. From your example I would say you have to first find the meaning of the sentence then identify the 2 or more actions (verbs) that are supposed to be in parallel according to the meaning of the sentence. If you have another example of one in particular that is confusing I might be able to help walk through it better...

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Osirus@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1578; Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 8:02 amFollowed by: 34 members; Thanked: 128 times; GMAT Score:760

by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:24 am

ldoolitt wrote:
osirus0830 wrote:
Oh, sorry about that. It is structurally parallel. The logical parallelism in that sentence is that you have to make the actions of John parallel. The two actions must be made structurally parallel. I guess my question is how do you know what to make structurally parallel? The book says to look for what two or more items must be logically parallel to find out what to make structurally parllel, but if I can't recognize what needs to be logically parallel, I can never get to that step.
No worries. I was just trying to understand. From your example I would say you have to first find the meaning of the sentence then identify the 2 or more actions (verbs) that are supposed to be in parallel according to the meaning of the sentence. If you have another example of one in particular that is confusing I might be able to help walk through it better...

sigh...I was afraid of that. Thanks..I find that to be the most dificult part of sentence correction because everything is out of context. Thanks for your responses.

No one else has to reply, I got the response I was looking for.

https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-retake-o ... 51414.html

Brandon Dorsey
GMAT Instructor
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hrishi19884: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 407; Joined: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:20 amFollowed by: 1 member; Location: India; Thanked: 20 times

by hrishi19884 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:30 am

ldoolitt wrote:
osirus0830 wrote:
Oh, sorry about that. It is structurally parallel. The logical parallelism in that sentence is that you have to make the actions of John parallel. The two actions must be made structurally parallel. I guess my question is how do you know what to make structurally parallel? The book says to look for what two or more items must be logically parallel to find out what to make structurally parllel, but if I can't recognize what needs to be logically parallel, I can never get to that step.
No worries. I was just trying to understand. From your example I would say you have to first find the meaning of the sentence then identify the 2 or more actions (verbs) that are supposed to be in parallel according to the meaning of the sentence. If you have another example of one in particular that is confusing I might be able to help walk through it better...

I love reading books and articles. (one action -reading)

I love reading books and writing articles (two actions)

In these two examples - 1st one in not parallel though sentence is grammatically correct and meaning too is correct.
Because, I actually love to read both.

But, I think - GMAT would agree only on the 2nd ,since two actions are parallel. ( in case both are the options given in sentence correction).

Please explain....how should we go about it?

Hrishi

"As you sow, so shall you reap"

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ldoolitt: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 184; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:23 am; Location: Madison, WI; Thanked: 17 times

by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:45 am

hrishi19884 wrote:
I love reading books and articles. (one action -reading)

I love reading books and writing articles (two actions)

In these two examples - 1st one in not parallel though sentence is grammatically correct and meaning too is correct.
Because, I actually love to read both.

But, I think - GMAT would agree only on the 2nd ,since two actions are parallel. ( in case both are the options given in sentence correction).

Please explain....how should we go about it?

When I read the sentence "I love reading books and articles" I think "I love reading books an WHATTING articles" Technically speaking you can't really infer what action you are applying to articles because you don't state it explicitly in that sentence. I would think that "I love reading books and reading articles" would be more correct, despite the fact no one actually talks like that and I doubt that actual question would be on the test...

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ldoolitt: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 184; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:23 am; Location: Madison, WI; Thanked: 17 times

by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:53 am

osirus0830 wrote:
sigh...I was afraid of that. Thanks..I find that to be the most dificult part of sentence correction because everything is out of context. Thanks for your responses.

No one else has to reply, I got the response I was looking for.

Hmm, that's a tough one. I don't know that you can actually do logical parallelism without knowing logically what is going on. I'll admit the GMAT does an incredible job of making the most distorted sentences to the point I have to read them twice to see what they are trying to say.

I think a technique might be to rewrite the sentence as you do in CR problems. Those can be tricky in wording and have a logical flow. Then ensure that the answer that you pick still logically satisfies the conditions you wrote down. I apologize that I don't know of a better technique for this.

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hrishi19884: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 407; Joined: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:20 amFollowed by: 1 member; Location: India; Thanked: 20 times

by hrishi19884 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:58 am

ldoolitt wrote:
hrishi19884 wrote:
I love reading books and articles. (one action -reading)

I love reading books and writing articles (two actions)

In these two examples - 1st one in not parallel though sentence is grammatically correct and meaning too is correct.
Because, I actually love to read both.

But, I think - GMAT would agree only on the 2nd ,since two actions are parallel. ( in case both are the options given in sentence correction).

Please explain....how should we go about it?
When I read the sentence "I love reading books and articles" I think "I love reading books an WHATTING articles" Technically speaking you can't really infer what action you are applying to articles because you don't state it explicitly in that sentence. I would think that "I love reading books and reading articles" would be more correct, despite the fact no one actually talks like that and I doubt that actual question would be on the test...

Hey one more doubt that struck me as soon as I got your reply.

Does 1st one means this> -- I love reading books
I love articles.

2nd one means this> I love reading books
I love reading articles.

If this is the case then 1st one should also be right. if I mean -- "I love articles" and "I love reading books"

Now, what you say?

Hrishi

"As you sow, so shall you reap"

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ldoolitt: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 184; Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:23 am; Location: Madison, WI; Thanked: 17 times

by ldoolitt » Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:03 am

hrishi19884 wrote:
Hey one more doubt that struck me as soon as I got your reply.

Does 1st one means this> -- I love reading books
I love articles.

2nd one means this> I love reading books
I love reading articles.

If this is the case then 1st one should also be right. if I mean -- "I love articles" and "I love reading books"

Now, what you say?

You are basically correct! If, for example, you flipped around the sentence its clearer

"I love reading books and articles"
"I love articles and reading books"

Not only is the meaning distorted but also those two aren't structurally parallel. You love an item compared to you love doing something with an item. Not parallel structurally.

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