All-terrain vehicles have allowed vacationers to reach many previously inaccessible areas, but they have also been blamed for causing hundreds of
deaths, injury to thousands, and seriously damaging the nation's recreational areas.
Meaning Analysis: ATVs have allowed us to reach inaccessible places. BUT, these ATVs have also done a lot of harm. They have caused deaths, have injured thousands and have damaged areas used for recreation purposes.
Sentence Structure:All-terrain vehicles
(plural subject)have allowed
(plural verb)vacationers to reach many previously inaccessible areas
(object of the sentence), but
(parallel marker) (,FANBOYS used to separate two ICs)they
(plural subject) (pronoun referring to plural noun "ATVs")have also been blamed for
(plural verb)causing hundreds of deaths
(element 1 of parallelism) , injury to thousands
(element 2 of parallelism), and
(parallelism marker) seriously damaging the nation's recreational areas.
(element 3 of parallelism)
Quote:
(A) deaths, injury to thousands, and seriously damaging
The group of words "have been blamed for" is taken common for all the three elements. Element 2 of the parallel list "injury to thousands" does not make sense with "have been blamed for". ATVs have been blamed for
causing hundreds of deaths have been blamed for
damaging the nation's... have been blamed for "
injury to thousands". The way the sentence is written makes this choice inferior.
We could also take "have also been blamed for causing" as the common element in which case
hundreds of deaths and
injury to thousands would make sense BUT
seriously damaging the nation's... would not.
Ask yourself does
"ATVS have been blamed for causing seriously damaging the nation's..." make sense?
Quote:
(B) deaths and injuring thousands, and serious damage to
The usage of multiple "and" makes this choice less preferable. We say X, Y, and Z. We do not say X and Y, and Z.
I believe
have been blamed for causing deaths, injuring thousands, and serious damage to would have been correct. In this case "causing" "injuring" and "damage" are three nouns. YES, "damaging" would be more ideal BUT I do not think that this parallelism would be incorrect.
WHY? Because as explained by
GMATNinja in parallelism,
the elements have to be of the same structure. I.e... ALL have to be nouns, or verbs, or modifiers, or clauses... BUT that does not mean they have to be EXACTLY of the same wordings.Quote:
(C) deaths, thousands who are injured, as well as seriously damaging
ATVs have been blamed for
"thousands who are injured". Ask yourself, does this sentence make sense?
Quote:
(D) deaths and thousands of injuries, as well as doing serious damage to
ATVs have been blamed for causing
hundreds of deaths and
thousands of injuries . This sentence structure is correct as "causing" is taken as the common element for the two parallel elements separated by "and". "
doing serious damage" is parallel to "
causing" and these two elements are connected by an additive phrase.
So the sentence structure is
causing X and Y,
as well as doing Quote:
(E) deaths, thousands are injured, and they do serious damage to
Have been blamed for causing
"thousands are injured" Clearly this sentence does not make sense. Moreover the last element of the list "they do serious damage..." is a clause. ONLY a clause can be parallel to another clause. Out here the first two elements are nouns and thus the parallelism is incorrect.
Correct Choice:
(D)