MGMAT Flash Cards SC -Q No:55 - Parallelism

[peetz.gmat]

Hi,
While reviewing the MGMAT flash card, came across this question:

"Among the dog’s offenses are a refusal to eat anything but expensive rib eye steak and a penchant for attacking postal workers, neighbors and relatives, including my nephew and grandmother."

It is mentioned in the Flash Cards that the above statement is correct as written and it tests parallelism. But I don't understand how "a refusal to eat" and "a penchant for attacking" are parallel.
I felt that in order to make it parallel, it should be "a refusal to eat" and "a penchant to attack"

Could you please Clarify.
Many Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Hi,
While reviewing the MGMAT flash card, came across this question:

"Among the dog’s offenses are a refusal to eat anything but expensive rib eye steak and a penchant for attacking postal workers, neighbors and relatives, including my nephew and grandmother."

It is mentioned in the Flash Cards that the above statement is correct as written and it tests parallelism. But I don't understand how "a refusal to eat" and "a penchant for attacking" are parallel.
I felt that in order to make it parallel, it should be "a refusal to eat" and "a penchant to attack"

Could you please Clarify.
Many Thanks

"Refusal" and "penchant" are parallel.

"Penchant to attack" is not idiomatic. "Penchant" goes with "for", not "to".

You want parallel structures to be as parallel as possible, but you can't make them more parallel at the expense of correct grammar, idiom, or meaning.

[peetz.gmat]

Hi Ron,
Thanks a lot for the clarification.
Regards
Peetz

[RonPurewal]

Sure.

[amitb235]

Quick question - even though we have only 2 items in parallel list, why is the use of "among" correct here? I believe between is used to list 2 items and among is used for >2 items. Though I see use of between will be nonsensical but want to confirm the usage of among. Thanks!

[Chelsey Cooley]

For one, the dog presumably has more than two offenses: we can tell that for certain because the sentence wouldn't make sense unless there were other offenses that hadn't been described (maybe the dog also chews on furniture). So, "among the offenses" would be right.

But the bigger issue is that "among his offenses are..." is idiomatic. No matter how few offenses there are in total, you'd never write "between his offenses are..."

[ThomasG308]

I hope that I am not too late to this thread.

I was hoping to get some clarification regarding the "including my nephew and grandmother" modifier. When I first read the sentence I assumed that this phrase was incorrect as I believed that it applied to the entire parallel structure in the sentence. However, this adverbial modifier only applies to the noun "relatives" within the parallel structure. I was under the impression that an adverbial modifier applies to the entire preceding clause. Can someone elaborate as to why this only applies to the "relatives" part of the parallel structure?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

No, you're not too late. Anyone is welcome to add to these threads.

As I understand it, you're seeing 'including my nephew and grandmother' as a "comma -ing" modifier that modifies the whole clause. However, the word 'including' is an exception to this rule. Take a look at this quite extensive thread: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... tml#p11222

Actually, looking at this sentence, there is an error in that it should contain a comma after 'neighbors', the notorious Oxford comma.

[ThomasG308]

Much clearer now. Thanks for your help!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]