PREPSC:Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act

[sahilmalhotra01]

Hi

I have taken the GMAT prep test today and was stuck with options D and E.

Though the post is quite old and i have gone through the explanations which states that three actions

to single out, begin and impose are required to be parallel.

But I read the sentence and understood that "and separated by commas" doesn't this makes the two parts of the sentences as independent clauses.

So the parallelism will be applicable to first independent clause only.

Please clarify.

Sahil

[RonPurewal]

i'm sorry, but i don't know the terms you're using.

in any case, remember that the FIRST STEP of ANY sentence correction problem is to establish the intended meaning of the sentence.

in this context, it's quite clear that all 3 of those things MUST be parallel for the sentence to make sense.
so, any interpretation in which only 2 of those 3 things are parallel is WRONG.

[RonPurewal]

also, it seems you're asking about the presence/absence of a comma. remember, the presence/absence of punctuation is NEVER tested on this exam.

[sahilmalhotra01]

Thanks Ron for the reply.

I would rephrase my query.

The original sentence is " Section 301 of the 1988 omnibus trade and competitiveness act enables the United States Trade representative to single out a country as an unfair trader, begin trade negotiations with that country, and , if the negotiations do not conclude by the United States government's being satisfied, to impose sanctions.

my question is and in the above sentence between the two commas, doesn't that make two parts of the sentences as independent clauses. So the parallelism would be applicable to first sentence only.

Sahil

[RonPurewal]

if your analysis were valid, then the correct answer would be wrong. what does this mean about your analysis?

[RonPurewal]

...and, no, adding a comma after "and" does not mean you have to start another complete sentence (if that's what "independent clause" means -- i don't know that term). that's not a thing.