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Parallelism: OG #103

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by Buix0065 » Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:02 pm
Yellow Jackets number among the 900 or so species of the world's social wasps, wasps living in a highly cooperative and organized society where they consist almost entirely of females--the queen and her sterile female workers.

B. wasps that live in a highly cooperative and organized society consisting almost entirely of
C. which means they live in a highly cooperative and organized society, almost all
D. Which means that their society is highly cooperative, organized, and it is almost entirely
E. living in a society that is highly cooperative, organized, and it consists of almost all

OA: [spoiler]B

The OA confuses me, as I don't see how "consisting" is parallel to cooperative and organized... shouldn't it be "consists" or eliminated entirely?

Thanks![/spoiler]
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by vineeshp » Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:12 pm
Nope.
consisting is not a parallel fragment of cooperative and organized.

Instead it defines the society. The other 2 are adjectives of the society and consisting introduces something about the construction of this society.
Vineesh,
Just telling you what I know and think. I am not the expert. :)
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by Ilana@EconomistGMAT » Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:59 pm
In grammatical terms "consisting" is a participle that modifies the noun "society". It is not the same part of speech as "cooperative" and "organized" - which are both adjectives. The adjective must come before the noun, while a participle can follow the noun.
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by Buix0065 » Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:46 pm
Thanks Vineeshp and Llana,

The answer in the book refers to three discriptors of social wasps (cooperative, organized, and consisting almost entirely of female). The guide says these descriptors are most effectively expressed in parallel structures.

Can you help me understand where the parallelism is? thanks!
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