gmatbull wrote:
Due to the rising cost of textbooks, some instructors are rethinking traditional approaches to publishing, including discovering new ways to deliver information to students, open-source, print-on-demand, and digital marketplace alternatives.
A. publishing, including discovering new ways to deliver information to students,
B. publishing with new ways of delivering information to students,
C. publishing, discovering new ways to deliver information to students, which includes
D. publishing by delivering information to students in new ways, discoveries such as
E. publishing and discovering new ways to deliver information to students, including
I'm happy to help with this.
What's intriguing about this, first of all, is that neither "rethinking" nor "publishing" is necessarily parallel to "discovering", so the proper connection between those is unclear.
The giveaway is the list at the end ---- "
open-source, print-on-demand, and digital marketplace alternatives." First of all, those are and should be in parallel. Second, that's a list of examples, examples of "
new ways to deliver information to students", so it has to be introduced as a proper list of examples. On the GMAT, the only proper introduction for a list of examples is the phrase "such as" --- only (D) has this proper construction, so (D) must be the answer.
Notice, (D) also has a satisfactory arrangement with respect to the gerund "discovering" ---- they "
are rethinking ... by discovering .." ---- in other words, the "discovering" phrase is the means by which they are rethinking. That makes sense in context.
See this blog for more on gerunds (both "publishing" and "discovering" are gerunds in the OA)
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... d-phrases/The verb "are rethinking" is the present progressive: see this blog for more on that:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-verbs ... ive-tense/The phrase "to deliver ..." is an infinitive phrase: see this blog for more on that:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/infinitive ... -the-gmat/I hope all this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Mike
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Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)