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tenses or parallelism (clueless)

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tenses or parallelism (clueless)

by AJWILL » Wed Jul 25, 2012 2:23 am
Q)2. Too old to bear arms himself, Frederick Douglass served as a recruiting agent, traveled through the North to exhort Black men to join the Union army.
[A] traveled through the North to exhort
and he traveled through the North and exhorted
[C] and traveling through the North exhorted
[D] traveling through the North and exhorted
[E] traveling through the North and exhorting
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by eagleeye » Wed Jul 25, 2012 2:48 am
AJWILL wrote:Q)2. Too old to bear arms himself, Frederick Douglass served as a recruiting agent, traveled through the North to exhort Black men to join the Union army.
[A] traveled through the North to exhort
and he traveled through the North and exhorted
[C] and traveling through the North exhorted
[D] traveling through the North and exhorted
[E] traveling through the North and exhorting


In this case :
1. We have an introductory modifier, "Too old to bear arms himself".
2. We have a main independent clause, "Frederick Douglass served as a recruiting agent".
The sentence is best completed by a modifying phrase, which tells us what Frederick did as a recruiting agent. The most accurate and parallel phrase in this case is option "E" which uses the "verb+ing" form.

[A] traveled through the North to exhort
This one turns the sentence into a fragment. NO.

and he traveled through the North and exhorted
"he" is redundant. Parallelism is violated due to no commas and an extra "and".

[C] and traveling through the North exhorted
This one makes the sentence illogical by omitting a comma between North and exhorted.

[D] traveling through the North and exhorted
Not parallel. NO.

[E] traveling through the North and exhorting
This is the right answer. Parallel and modifies the main clause correctly.

Cheers!
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by kulhot » Wed Jul 25, 2012 3:05 am
IMO (D).Please post the OA.
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by avik.ch » Wed Jul 25, 2012 8:30 am
AJWILL wrote:Q)2. Too old to bear arms himself, Frederick Douglass served as a recruiting agent, traveled through the North to exhort Black men to join the Union army.
[A] traveled through the North to exhort
and he traveled through the North and exhorted
[C] and traveling through the North exhorted
[D] traveling through the North and exhorted
[E] traveling through the North and exhorting


There is a difference when we use present participle and past participle as a modifier - both take the subject in different case. For more on this refer this : https://www.beatthegmat.com/football-team-t106071.html - eliminate A.

B and C is incorrect due to the use of "and" - "and" is used when both the events are not related. Other problems :
B - FD served... and traveled... and exhorted... --- I am not sure what elements are parallel.

C - "travelling" breaks parallelism

So now we are left with D and E. Here also you can use the above logic, why "exhorted" in D is wrong, and arrive at the correct answer - E.

And you must not worry about tense in this question, its only parallelism.

Hope this helps !!
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