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aaggar7: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 124; Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 8:48 pm; Thanked: 9 times; Followed by:1 members

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by aaggar7 » Sun Apr 14, 2013 5:52 am

Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.
(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help
(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping
(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping
(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help
(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

OA is A but what is wrong with the answer choice E.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sun Apr 14, 2013 5:52 am

mohit_1607: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 33; Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2012 9:37 am; Thanked: 6 times

by mohit_1607 » Sun Apr 14, 2013 12:45 pm

aaggar7 wrote: OA is A but what is wrong with the answer choice E.

Parallelism is not there in E.(heal--thanking)

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positiveamal: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 8; Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2013 4:12 am

by positiveamal » Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:41 pm

Parallelism Marker: "Either X or Y"

"Either asking ..... or thanking" would be parallel. (Remove B & D at this point)

"Supplicants were asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills" is correct. If we chose E: "Supplicants were asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid to heal physical and mentall ills..." It would mean that supplicants were asking goddess aid to heal ills... as if supplicants were the one to cure the ill ones.

C is wrong for obvious reason : Wordiness

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Gowri@CrackVerbal: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 123; Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2012 2:34 am; Location: Bengaluru, India; Thanked: 46 times; Followed by:9 members

by Gowri@CrackVerbal » Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:49 pm

aaggar7 wrote:Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.
(A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help
(B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping
(C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping
(D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help
(E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help

OA is A but what is wrong with the answer choice E.

Actually, the choice between A and E depends not on parallelism, but on idiomatic usage. Here, the idiom used is Either/Or. I've highlighted the parallel portions below:
"...supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help."

'Aid in' is the right GMAT idiom, not 'aid to', when 'aid' is used to mean 'help'. This is why A is right and E is wrong.

Gowri N Kishore
Verbal Specialist & Mentor
CrackVerbal

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