Hi Ron,
I thought that the parallelism signal is "or" and in choice A for looks or to meet the other narrow criteria are not parallel (grammatically). After going through your video classes, i always try to eliminate problems by this method. As in this example, does this mean only grammatical parallelism doesn't work in correct answers?
Thank you
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- shans.bgp
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- RonPurewal
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Re: Second Correct problem with Being
you are of course correct that the two constructions are not completely identical. however, they play precisely the same grammatical role: both of them are modifiers that describe "bred".
make sure you don't think that parallel structures have to look exactly like each other all the time. that may be the ideal situation, sure -- but, if it were an absolute requirement, it would become extremely difficult or even impossible to express many mundane ideas.
e.g.,
my wife and i argue just as often and about the same things as the couple next door.
--> this is a correct sentence. (it happens to work a lot like #46 in the og diagnostic section, if you care to look that one up.)
if you believe in the idea that parallel structures must look exactly like each other at all times, then this sentence becomes impossible to write.
--
luckily, there is a rather easy way out of this quagmire:
you don't have to formulate the parallel structures yourself. you just have to pick the choice with the BEST parallelism.
take a look at the answer choices in this problem again. yes, the constructions in the correct answer are not exactly alike -- but the parallel constructions are not identical in any of the other choices, either! so, your logic as stated here would actually eliminate all five answer choices.
make sure you don't think that parallel structures have to look exactly like each other all the time. that may be the ideal situation, sure -- but, if it were an absolute requirement, it would become extremely difficult or even impossible to express many mundane ideas.
e.g.,
my wife and i argue just as often and about the same things as the couple next door.
--> this is a correct sentence. (it happens to work a lot like #46 in the og diagnostic section, if you care to look that one up.)
if you believe in the idea that parallel structures must look exactly like each other at all times, then this sentence becomes impossible to write.
--
luckily, there is a rather easy way out of this quagmire:
you don't have to formulate the parallel structures yourself. you just have to pick the choice with the BEST parallelism.
take a look at the answer choices in this problem again. yes, the constructions in the correct answer are not exactly alike -- but the parallel constructions are not identical in any of the other choices, either! so, your logic as stated here would actually eliminate all five answer choices.
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Re: Second Correct problem with Being
How can I forget to say a big THANKS !!!
- tim
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Re: Second Correct problem with Being
you're welcome!
Tim Sanders
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Re:
[quote="RonPurewal"]
c: lots of things
- the beginning 'it' doesn't have a proper antecedent
- as the previous poster points out, 'it is not so much the cause...' seems to say that the phenomenon mentioned doesn't really cause the mentioned effect
- you don't use 'much' twice; the proper construction is 'not so much ... as'
[quote]
Hi Ron,
Wanna ask a quesion regarding "it" here in your first point:
What is the difference between this it here and the it of "it is XXX that XXX"? Why "it" here does not have a referent, but the "it" in "it is...that..." can present the "that-clause"?
thanks
c: lots of things
- the beginning 'it' doesn't have a proper antecedent
- as the previous poster points out, 'it is not so much the cause...' seems to say that the phenomenon mentioned doesn't really cause the mentioned effect
- you don't use 'much' twice; the proper construction is 'not so much ... as'
[quote]
Hi Ron,
Wanna ask a quesion regarding "it" here in your first point:
What is the difference between this it here and the it of "it is XXX that XXX"? Why "it" here does not have a referent, but the "it" in "it is...that..." can present the "that-clause"?
thanks
- RonPurewal
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Re: Re:
franck_pan Wrote:What is the difference between this it here and the it of "it is XXX that XXX"? Why "it" here does not have a referent, but the "it" in "it is...that..." can present the "that-clause"?
thanks
you're right, actually, the "it" can be viewed as part of that construction. fortunately, there are still a slew of other things wrong with that choice.
i've edited that part out of my earlier post.