To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually instilling the notion that many of those who are just called "needy" actually have adequate resources; such a conclusion is unwarranted.

a) Original sentence
b) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the notion gradually
c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually to instill the notion
d) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is to instill the gradual notion
e) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the gradual notion


See this is purely parallel structure error...
To speak/speaking should be in parallel to to instill/instilling

Eliminate all except C and E

Generally we use + ing form for something that is going on (or) if we speak on complete process.
+to form for something to start.

So here C is better than E; more over E changes the meaning.

prinkalvaid wrote:To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually instilling the notion that many of those who are just called "needy" actually have adequate resources; such a conclusion is unwarranted.

a) Original sentence
b) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the notion gradually
c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually to instill the notion
d) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is to instill the gradual notion
e) Speaking habitually of the "truly needed" is instilling the gradual notion


In my opinion the answer should be d),but the correct answer is c)

Does anyone has any explanations??

You can solve this question by applying the parallelism concept: Verbs like IS, ARE demands a parallelism on both sides...

Gradually is just an adverb, so we need to make the part before IS parallel to part after gradually..

ok what we are doing here is maintaining parallelism on both sides of "IS" A, B, D can be eliminated because they are breaking parallelism.

back to C and E.

E is incorrect because

speaking is a gerund and habitually is a adverb (incorrect modifier). i should say habitual speaking instead of speaking habitually.

C maintains that parallelism to speak ........ to instill.

A "split infinitive" is the insertion of one or more words between to and the plain form of the verb; it is usually the adverb inserted, as in to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Jim@Grockit wrote:A "split infinitive" is the insertion of one or more words between to and the plain form of the verb; it is usually the adverb inserted, as in to boldly go where no man has gone before.

instead of
c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is gradually to instill the notion

the correct answer should be

c) To speak habitually of the "truly needed" is to gradually instill the notion

Some please provide explanation for this one.

Thanks
Mankey

Thanks all for the wonderful explanations