Thanks, Bruce. You looked deeper for
parallelism than I did, and I like your rewrite.
Herb
From:
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007
9:05 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Grammar Question
Herb & Geoff,
I think the
parallelism is between the two elements in the second clause, the author
probably thinking that the "its" needed to be given to both
elements. The same lack of parallelism could be said about the
"of the college" belonging to both conjoined elements in the
preferred version (C). My revision was identical to yours, but I didn't
send it in when I saw your reply. At risk of being overly pedantic, I
offer the following comments:
The basic
propositions are:
1) She was
president of the college for some time.
2) Many changes
occurred during that time.
3) Those changes
increased the educational quality of the college.
4) Those changes
increased effectiveness.
I think that what
might have been intended is:
4) Those
changes increased the educational effectiveness of the college"
though this
is still not fully informative. Nevertheless, I think that to
maintain strict parallelism these concepts would have to be retained in
parallel, so that we would have something like:
E) During the
time that she was president of the college many changes occurred which
increased its educational strengths, in both quality
and effectiveness.
Bruce
>>> "
Geoff,
There are no passives in the first clause or any of the variants of the second
clause. The verbs have non-agentive subjects, but the clauses are all
active. However, I agree, as I posted earlier, that all three
alternatives are poor. And I'm not sure why parallelism is an issue in
this test question. A semicolon doesn't demand parallelism between the
two clauses it links; although that may be a good thing in some cases, it's not
clear that it is here.
Herb
>While "C" seems fine to me, I don't understand why "B"
is deficient.
Actually, they're all deficient! As in most of these idiotic tests, the
real answer is "none of the above."
I suppose that "c" does provide a modicum of parallelism by creating
a
prepositional phrase (the "effectiveness of what") that weakly
parallels
"educational quality". However, the construction is still out
of whack
(technical! term t here!). It would seem more effective to simplify the
sentence. In addition, although passive verbs are not automatically wrong,
this one is certainly suspect. How about, "She improved the quality
and
effectiveness of the college during her presidency."? This is still
much
too vague for my tastes, but it does solve a variety of the problems.
Geoff Layton
The correct answer is given as "C." My daughter's
workbook
>notes that "B" is not parallel; however, I thought that in
seeking to
>determine whether parallel structure exists in a sentence, one need not pay
>attention to items that modify the elements that are equal in placement,
>importance and/or function. Thus, regarding choice "B," I
don't think that
>it matters that "its educational" modifies "quality,"
but that
>"effectiveness" has no modifier. Thank you for your help.
>
>Many change! s occur red while she was president of the college, and they
>increased its educational quality as well as effectiveness.
>
>A) college, and they increased its educational quality as well as
>effectiveness
>B) college; these changes increased its educational quality and
>effectiveness
>C) college; these changes increased both the educational quality and
>effectiveness of the college
>
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