AIM GMAT wrote:By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans, automobile loans, financial advice, and staying within the metropolitan areas, Acme Bank has become one of the most profitable savings banks in the nation.

(A) financial advice, and staying
(B) financial advice, and by staying
(C) and financial advice, staying
(D) and financial advice, and staying
(E) and financial advice, and by staying

Parallelism

By providing and by staying...
Down to B/E
We need and before financial advice to link it to rest of list(services provided by bank--> mortgages, home improvement loans, automobile loans, and financial advice).

So IMO E

E for me as well..

Parallelism...

By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans, automobile loans, financial advice, - these are services

staying within the metropolitan areas - is not a service, so need to but it in parallel with the services by using " By providing "...

Thus E

Thanks

I think the second By is redundant as we already have a by before and the first By should do for the second parallel clause as well . So D . In MGMAT there is an example in which you need a second By , but I have come across several SCs on BTG in which a second By is redundant

Agree with Munda Singh.

IMO D.

bubbliiiiiiii wrote:Agree with Munda Singh.

IMO D.

Which is Wrong

I agree with you guys that "by" is redundant in several sentences of parallelism..

However, I have seen many sentences where they are retained.. in OG itself..

Here IMO, I feel "by" is essential to create a distinction between "services" and "staying within the metropolitan areas"...

There are 2-3 examples in OG that falls in the same category.

Wats the OA?

Hi Raunekk,

Thanks for explanation.

Can you also help us by sharing details on how to actually distinguish between the categories?

raunekk wrote:I agree with you guys that "by" is redundant in several sentences of parallelism..

However, I have seen many sentences where they are retained.. in OG itself..

Here IMO, I feel "by" is essential to create a distinction between "services" and "staying within the metropolitan areas"...

There are 2-3 examples in OG that falls in the same category.

Wats the OA?

Guys i have updated the OA in the original post .

Hi ,

Could any one explain this concept of inclusion/exclusion of by in a detailed way.....


Expert reply would be excellent

AIM GMAT wrote:By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans, automobile loans, financial advice, and staying within the metropolitan areas, Acme Bank has become one of the most profitable savings banks in the nation.

(A) financial advice, and staying
(B) financial advice, and by staying
(C) and financial advice, staying
(D) and financial advice, and staying
(E) and financial advice, and by staying

OA E

May I know the source of this question?

D and E both are okay. and actual GMAT will never ask such trivial question where you have to decide between two correct choices.

bhavesh_09 wrote:

AIM GMAT wrote:By providing such services as mortgages, home improvement loans, automobile loans, financial advice, and staying within the metropolitan areas, Acme Bank has become one of the most profitable savings banks in the nation.

(A) financial advice, and staying
(B) financial advice, and by staying
(C) and financial advice, staying
(D) and financial advice, and staying
(E) and financial advice, and by staying

OA E

May I know the source of this question?

D and E both are okay. and actual GMAT will never ask such trivial question where you have to decide between two correct choices.

This is an X-GMAT . Source :OG

May I know the source of this question?

D and E both are okay. and actual GMAT will never ask such trivial question where you have to decide between two correct choices

Bhavesh , this is official question , OG 11 .

The Official explanation says that staying is not parallel to by providing for Option D.

The repetition of by indicates that the staying is not one of the services, but rather one of the means by which Acme has become so profitable. It is an important difference.

Jim@Grockit wrote:The repetition of by indicates that the staying is not one of the services, but rather one of the means by which Acme has become so profitable. It is an important difference.

Hi Jim,

Firstly, thanks for taking out time and replying to this thread.

From the statement above, I understand that we use by to differente between the list of services and means of Acme becoming profitable.

I thought the usage of two ands does that in the options.
and financial advice, and staying
This one acts to maintain parallelism among the list of services.
while, this one tries to maintain parallelism between the means by which Acme has become profitable.

Can you please clarify where my understanding goes wrong?

Also, can you please help me understand when to use reduntant bys and when not to use?