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Parallelism Issue

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Parallelism Issue

by student22 » Sat Jun 12, 2010 7:22 pm
According to a 1996 survey by the National Association of College an University Business Officers, more than three times as many independent institutions of higher education charge tuition and fees of under $8,000 a year than those that charge over $16,000.
A) than those that charge
B) than are charging
C) than to charge
D) as charge
E) as those charging

OA: E

I understand why it should be narrowed down to D and E, because of the as X as Y idiom. But what I don't understand is how, that charge is parallel to those charging. Shouldn't it be, as those that charge over $16,000? Thanks!
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by hardik.jadeja » Sun Jun 13, 2010 2:39 am
I had the same doubt when I first tried to solve this question.
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by rockeyb » Sun Jun 13, 2010 3:28 am
D) as charge
E) as those charging
Option D dose not say who is charging the fees .

The use of THOSE refers to institutes and the sentence is comparing institutes charging fees of under $8,000 to the institutes charging fees of over $16,000.


So I think comparison the major issue here rather than parallelism.
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by student22 » Sun Jun 13, 2010 7:51 am
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I understand the need for "those". What I'm having trouble with is the parallelism between charge and charging. When is it correct to compare those two tenses?

Basically my question is this: Is this simply a bad question? Or is there a specific rule when you can safely compare two different tenses like that?
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by rockeyb » Sun Jun 13, 2010 8:12 pm
student22 wrote:Sorry if I wasn't clear. I understand the need for "those". What I'm having trouble with is the parallelism between charge and charging. When is it correct to compare those two tenses?

Basically my question is this: Is this simply a bad question? Or is there a specific rule when you can safely compare two different tenses like that?
Parallelism dose not have to be similar tenses or similar clauses always . Many have a misconception that parallelism acts as an equal to sign (=) so two things must always be parallel .

But that is not always true . Yes we need to make two clause parallel in case to achieve parallelism, we need keep the verb in same tense to achieve parallelism , but some time achieving parallelism in meaning is more important than structural parallelism .

If we take example above its an example were we achieve parallelism in meaning and not structurally . Another example of such a case is Q39 OG 11 SC.

Well I am no expert but this is what I have understood , any additional comments are welcome .
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by student22 » Mon Jun 14, 2010 11:46 am
I took a look at that question. That situation is a little bit different from this one. There it has 2 participle phrases: spawned and extending. So even though the tense is different, grammatically they're the same (i.e. both participles).

But I see what you mean when you said that in this sentence charge and charging are logically similar. I guess they both accomplish the same role, and while that charge would be preferable, I can see why charging is acceptable.
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by outreach » Mon Jun 14, 2010 8:19 pm
Correct idiom is "more than.. as many" - "as"
'charging' describes the 2nd set of univs
'those' is the approp pronoun
E
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