In metalwork one advantage of adhesive-bonding over spot-welding is

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Parallelism + Idioms + Redundancy/Awkwardness

• Any elements linked by a conjunction (“instead of”, “as opposed to, “in contrast with”, and “rather than” in this sentence) must be parallel.
• “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of passive continuous must be justified in the context.

A: Trap. This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between “over a broad surface area” and “a series of regularly spaced points”; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction (“instead of” in this sentence) must be parallel.

B: Trap. This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between “over a broad surface area” and “a series of regularly spaced points”; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction (“as opposed to” in this sentence) must be parallel.

C: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between “over a broad surface area” and “a series of regularly spaced points”; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction (“in contrast with” in this sentence) must be parallel.

D: Correct. This answer choice maintains parallelism between the prepositional phrases “over a broad surface area” and “at a series of regularly spaced points”. Further, Option D is free of awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice incorrectly utilizes the word “being”, leading to redundancy; “being” is only to be used when it is part of a noun phrase or represents the passive continuous verb tense; the use of the passive continuous tense must be justified in context.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

In metalwork one advantage of adhesive-bonding over spot-welding is that the contact, and hence the bonding, is effected continuously over a broad surface instead of a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between.

instead of --used for replacement
I want coffe instead of tea .
rather than -- used to preference.



A)
= ...advantage of X over Y is that the contact.. is effected continously "over a broad surface" (O) instead of
"a series of regulary spaced points..." (S)
O and S are not parallel. also "instead of" is incorrec here.

D) ...advantage of X over Y is that the contact.. is effected continously "over a broad surface" (O) rather than
"at a series of regulary spaced points..." (S)
O and S are ll... and also rather than makes sense here.

correct me if i am wrong

E is out "being"
B is awkward out
C - "in contrast with" is used to compare like things. It is inappropriate in this context
A - instead of cannot be used to compare clauses

D remains.

Moreover the comparison is

bonding is effected continuously over a broad surface rather than at a series of regularly spaced points

How to decide between instead of and rather than here??
I think the verb is effected makes it necessary to use rather than and not instead of.

Experts pls comment on that.

‘Instead of’ means ‘in the place of’. In contexts when we have a dilemma of choosing between one or the other 'rather than' is more befitting.

In metal work one advantage of adhesive-bonding over spot-welding is that the contact, and hence the bonding, is effected continuously over a broad surface in the place of a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between

We can see how 'rather than' fits in better. I have hardly seen 'instead of' being approved by GMAT in such circumstances.

I think the point is:

The comparison of contact. Whether contact is continuous or at regularly spaced points. The meaning of the sentence is trying to point out contact done continuously is better than done regularly spaced.

For choices A, B, which sounds pretty reasonable at first glance, you reject them for not having at

Only D makes the meaning complete.

The sentence goes:
contact, blah blah blah, is effected continuously over a broad surface instead of a series
of regularly spaced points with no bonding

Compares contact effected continuously to a series of regularly spaced points. <--- This doesnt make any sense whether it is A, B or C.

Not sure if I am putting my point across correctly.

Yes, I agree with your view. I would just like to try to put it across a bit more clearly, if I can.

The comparison markers here are
X instead of Y
X rather than Y

The comparison is between the two processes by which "the contact is effected":

Process 1 (X): The contact is effected continuously over a broad surface.
Process 2 (Y): The contact is effected at a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between.

Hence the compared elements are continuously over a broad surface and at a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between.

Moreover, the usage of "instead of" is restricted to nouns only, whereas "rather than" is more versatile and can be used for comparing not just nouns, nut also other elements such as participles, phrases etc. Hence "rather than" is the correct choice here.

The correct answer is D, which takes care of both the above issues.

In metalwork one advantage of adhesive-bonding over spot-welding is that the contact, and hence the bonding, is effected continuously over a broad surface instead of a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between.

daagh sir,
I am not able to understand the structure of the highlighted portion of the sentence, could you please help me to understand that.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Tamal

"hence the bonding" is an appositive modifier of the contact since the bonding or adhesion is the effect of the contact. "hence" makes this point clear and we should take them as one unit rather than as two different phenomena.

I got this answer wrong initially, but I'm trying hard to use GMATNinja 's theory of going literal to understand this better:

- instead of and rather than are preferred idioms
- amongst these two, here's how i got to the right answer:

In metalwork one advantage of adhesive-bonding over spot-welding is that the contact, and hence the bonding, is effected continuously over a broad surface instead of a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between.
--> Makes it look like the contacts are effected instead of the regularly spaced points. But the intent is to show the comparison at the points where the welding effects are seen, so needs a "at"


rather than at --> in option D fixes it

Kudos if you feel content with the reply

This question focuses mainly on the difference between "Instead of" vs "Rather than"
Instead of: It only takes noun as an object and can only put nouns in parallel.
Rather than: It can take either a noun or a clause as its object. It can put nouns, pronouns or entire actions in parallel.
Hence D is correct answer choice

OFFICIAL GMAT EXPLANATION

The corrected sentence must contrast an effect of spot-welding with an effect of adhesive-bonding. To do so logically and grammatically, it must describe the effects in parallel terms. When inserted into the sentence, D produces the parallel construction over a broad surface rather than at a series. Having no word such as over or at indicate location, choices A, B, and C fail to complete the parallel and so illogically draw a contrast between surface and series. In E, as against being is a wordy and unidiomatic way to establish the intended contrast. Choice D is best.

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja egmat experts pls help

Why can't A be right?
I interpreted it this way:

is effected continuously over
1) "a broad surface"
instead of
2) "a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between"

Essentially, is effected over X instead of Y
In this manner both A and D fit well for me. Where did I go wrong?

This is not correct. The sentence should work with both elements.

...is effected continuously over a broad surface... - this is ok
...is effected continuously over a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between... - this is not ok. The contact is not continuous. It is at spaced points.

Hence, the parallel elements must be:

is effected
1) "continuously over a broad surface"
2) "at a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between"

Now it is correct.
...is effected continuously over a broad surface... - ok
...is effected at a series of regularly spaced points... - ok

30 Seconds ans
rather than is preffered over instead of so A out
as opposed to means absence of second element thats not the case ..we are comparing so B out
in contrast with is used to differentiate we are talking about similarity of 1 feature...not appropriate so C out
being is not preffered on GMAT so E out (you can use being in starting of sentence on GMAT)

D is the answere

A student asked me for an explanation of this one, so I'm posting it here to serve everyone.

His question: "This is the type of question that gives me the most trouble. No other tips to look for, just one issue to solve. Any tips on how to approach such question?"

Here's my response: We have to find the decision point. “Instead of” and “as opposed to” are 99% interchangeable, so there is no way to choose one over the other, and therefore neither of them could be the answer.

So there must be something else we need here, not just the logical opposition. And it turns out this is a structural parallelism issue! You could think of this as an X and Y parallelism question, like Correlative Constructions (not only X but also Y, where X and Y must be parallel). OK, so what are we comparing?

(Think about this for yourself before you read on - you may see it)

We are comparing the two places that bonding happens :
X: over a broad surface
Y: a series of regularly spaced points …

Are X and Y parallel? Not really. In Y, we need a word like “over” - a preposition.

You can hear it clearly if you read this as two different sentences:
Bonding happens over a broad surface ✅
Bonding happens a series of regularly spaced points 👎

We need the “at” proposed in D and E. And E is a wordy mess, so D is our winner.

This is definitely tough, because they aren't the SAME preposition. But looking at it from a structural perspective shows us what is missing.

Hope this helps! Let me know.

KarishmaB - Logically 1 & 2 are parallel but am not able to understand how grammatically they are parallel , i.e 1st -Continuously is an adverb and 2nd part i.e at a....- is a prepositional phrase.

is effected
1) "continuously over a broad surface"
2) "at a series of regularly spaced points with no bonding in between

Request you to explain.