A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors

Good question, VIGHNESHKAMATH. You want to prioritize like elements in a comparison ahead of other concerns regarding parallelism. In this case, one element within the comparison, the second, simply branches, adding extra information about that particular element. Take a look at the options again in the context of the sentence:


Since rather than or instead of is our comparison trigger, we can look to each side for like elements.

(A) retirement (noun) rather than face (noun—infinitive) X
(B) retirement (noun) instead of facing (noun—gerund) X
(C) retiring (noun—gerund) instead of facing (noun—gerund) (strictly in terms of comparing like elements, and ignoring the usage of instead of, this option is better than (B)) √
(D) to retire (noun—infinitive) rather than facing (noun—gerund) X
(E) to retire (noun—infinitive) rather than face (noun—infinitive, with an ellipsis for to) √

After round one, with an eye on exactly what is being compared, only (C) and (E) hold up. Notice that the latter half of each answer choice branches: rather than face the threats... and [face] the rising costs. There is no need to seek parallelism between facing and rising, since facing would carry over as an understood element ahead of the rising costs anyway:

(D) rather than facing the threats... and [facing] the rising costs

You have to be careful not to chase the wrong targets in SC. Comparisons are heavily tested, and they are also tightly governed. If you have any doubts about an answer choice that contains a comparison, look to that part first and consider other issues thereafter.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew