The British sociologist and activist Barbara Wootton

[Guest79]

The British sociologist and activist Barbara Wootton once noted as a humurous example of income madistribution that the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo was earning annually exactly what she earned as director of adult education for London.

(A) Same
(B) that the elephant, giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo, had been earning
(C) that there was an elephant giving rides to the children at the Whipsnade Zoo, and it earned
(D) the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo and was earning
(E) the elephant giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo and that it earned

[payam]

It is Definitely A.

[givemeanid]

A for me too

[Guest79]

Instructors - any input on this one?

Thanka

[StaceyKoprince]

We need "that" to start the underline: Wootton noted (the fact) that something is true. Eliminate D and E.

C is passive and separates the two clauses by an "and" when we are actually trying to draw a connection there. Eliminate.

B has a tense problem (had been earning - this should be the simple past like the other verbs in the sentence). In addition, the "giving rides" modifier implies something going on while it's giving rides, but that's not the correct meaning.

The correct meaning is exhibited by A: "the elephant that gave rides" - which elephant? The one that gave rides to kids.

A is correct.

[deadpig1987hahaha]

In option C:
The British sociologist and activist Barbara Wootton once noted as a humurous example of income madistribution that there was an elephant giving rides to the children at the Whipsnade Zoo, and it earned annually exactly what she earned as director of adult education for London.

Is it clear here that ",and it earned...." parallel to " there was..." or "the British...noted as..."?
I remember Ive read somewhere that the second "that" of parallel object clause couldn't be omitted otherwise the second clause can only parallel to the main clause.
I don't remember where I've read this. I've noticed the omission of second "that" in many wrong options of PREP questions, but these wrong options always have other errors, so I don't know if it is true.

again I would like to know the omission of second "that" is which of the following situation
A. Ok
B. maybe right may be wrong depends on other errors
C. definitely wrong

Thanks in advance.

[deadpig1987hahaha]

ohhh　
I just read Ron's theory about Parallelism with one pair signal in another threat.

"
there are two kinds of parallel signals: ONE-PART (such as "and", "or", "but"), and TWO-PART (such as "not only ... but also", "both ... and").

when you have PARALLELISM WITH A ONE-PART SIGNAL, the only words that are "locked in" are the ones directly FOLLOWING the signal.
as long as you can find the corresponding structure in the other part, then the parallelism is fine."

This helps!
But I still want to know is the parallelism in the example I gave above unclear?
and would it become "clear" if I delete the comma before "and.."?
(...B.W once noted...that there was... and it earned..)

About the comma before "and", can I understand in this way:
when there is more than one possible correspoinding structures for the "locked in" words following "and" -->
if there is no comma before "and", then the "locked in" words should be grammatically parallel to the nearest correspoinding structure.
But if there is a comma before "and", the "locked in" words doesn't parallel to the nearest structure.

Is there any principles or rules to help me deal with this kind of " parallelism ambiguous" problem? Sorry I made this term up by myself, but I hope I'm understandable. lol

Thanks again!

[mask1ner]

Stacey,

For (B), you stated that "had been earning" should be in the simple past like the other verbs in the sentence. When you say "other," I'm assuming that you're referring to the verb "earned" towards the end of the sentence and not "noted." Is that correct? I ask because I actually chose (B) thinking that the perfect past tense appropriately indicated that the elephant gave rides before the example was noted. Perhaps if the simple past "gave" were used instead of present participle "giving," the error would have been more conspicuous. That said, if "then earned" were to be replaced by "had been earning" for (B), would this ans. choice be correct?

Thanks,
Julgi.

[RonPurewal]

Is there any principles or rules to help me deal with this kind of " parallelism ambiguous" problem? Sorry I made this term up by myself, but I hope I'm understandable. lol

Thanks again!

there's about an hour and a half of it in my MAY 13 workshop, found at this link:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

[RonPurewal]

Stacey,

For (B), you stated that "had been earning" should be in the simple past like the other verbs in the sentence. When you say "other," I'm assuming that you're referring to the verb "earned" towards the end of the sentence and not "noted." Is that correct? I ask because I actually chose (B) thinking that the perfect past tense appropriately indicated that the elephant gave rides before the example was noted. Perhaps if the simple past "gave" were used instead of present participle "giving," the error would have been more conspicuous. That said, if "then earned" were to be replaced by "had been earning" for (B), would this ans. choice be correct?

Thanks,
Julgi.

first, you are not incorrect that the past perfect could make sense here; it's possible (though certainly unlikely -- this is not the type of observation that someone would make in retrospect) that, for instance, wootton noted several years later that the two incomes were the same.

however, you shouldn't go with that, for at least two reasons.

1) remember -- [/b]if there are two or more choices that are grammatically correct, then you should preserve the meaning of the original.[/b]
this applies to all parts of the original meaning that are reasonable. if any parts of the original meaning are absurd, then you can change those, but only those.
so, since the original version of this problem places wootton's discovery at the same time as the earnings themselves, you are not at liberty to change that timing.

2) we have never seen a problem on which a complex tense, such as the past perfect, has been used without justification. i.e., we've seen plenty of sentences using the past perfect, but all of those sentences contain some sort of time cue that indicates the difference between the two time frames.
this problem contains no such cue.

--

also, there is another problem in choice (b), anyway: the modifier shouldn't be a nonessential modifier.
right now the modifier ("giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo") is set off by commas, indicating that it can be removed from the sentence with no loss of meaning.
this doesn't make sense -- "the elephant", alone, would not be a valid reference, and we need to be told that it was specifically the elephant that gave rides to the children (and not some other elephant). for both of these reasons, the modifier must be an essential (not set off by commas) modifier.

[agarwalmanoj2000]

The British sociologist and activist Barbara Wootton once noted as a humurous example of income madistribution that the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo was earning annually exactly what she earned as director of adult education for London.

(A) Same
(B) that the elephant, giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo, had been earning
(C) that there was an elephant giving rides to the children at the Whipsnade Zoo, and it earned
(D) the elephant that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo and was earning
(E) the elephant giving rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo and that it earned

Can we eliminate option C and D because pronoun "it" is ambiguous and may refer to zoo or elephant?

Please advise.

[singh.181]

Can we eliminate option C and D because pronoun "it" is ambiguous and may refer to zoo or elephant?

Please advise.

You mean C and E rite? because E, not D, uses pronoun "it".

I think usage of "it" is tolerable here, because "it" is parallel to its Antecedent. Please look at:

post14406.html#p14406

[RonPurewal]

Can we eliminate option C and D because pronoun "it" is ambiguous and may refer to zoo or elephant?

Please advise.

You mean C and E rite? because E, not D, uses pronoun "it".

I think usage of "it" is tolerable here, because "it" is parallel to its Antecedent. Please look at:

post14406.html#p14406

ya -- since that post (3 years ago), we've realized that the pronoun issue is actually much simpler:
post40400.html#p40400

basically, "pronoun ambiguity" is almost never worth even thinking about in the first place.

[bbrahul2]

Hi Stacey, Ron,
I was dismayed to see this question... Can you please explain how
the underlined words are in the same tense ?
"she then earned" clearly tells us that the speaker is in present tense and that she is explaining something about the past.
I expected to see a sentence structure like "elephant was earning exactly what she was earning" or "elephant earned exactly what she then earned" or "elephant had been earning exactly what she then earned ". By last example, elephant earned x, later she earned x, at present she may be earning more.

<snip> "that gave rides to children at the Whipsnade Zoo was earning annually exactly what she then earned "

Thanks,
Top

[RonPurewal]

Hi Stacey, Ron,
I was dismayed to see this question... Can you please explain how
the underlined words are in the same tense ?
"she then earned" clearly tells us that the speaker is in present tense and that she is explaining something about the past.

they're not in the same tense, and they don't have to be.

you are correct in your interpretation of "then". however, either "earned" or "was earning" would be fine to describe wootton's income at the time; the difference is in terms of whether the income was seen as stable (at a set level) or as something that could change readily.

for instance -- in the present tense:
i make $100,000 per year implies that this is a set wage or salary that is unlikely to change.
i am making $100,000 per year implies that this is just the current state of affairs, and that the number could change readily. (for instance, if i'm making my income by trading stocks or by some other kind of independent contracting with a variable income, this construction is more appropriate.)

in the past tense, these would be made / earned and was making / was earning, respectively.
if you apply the same sort of meanings to them, you will see why each would potentially make sense in the sentence at hand. "earned" is probably a little better, presuming that wootton's position as director of adult education had some sort of set salary, but either could be justified.