Hello Everyone!
Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow down the options to the correct choice! To start, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in
orange:
The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions, then taking turns drawing on the funds for home mortgages.
(A) subscriptions, then
taking turns
drawing(B) subscriptions, and then
taking turns
drawing(C) subscriptions and then
took turns
drawing(D) subscriptions and then
took turns, they
drew(E) subscriptions and then
drew,
taking turns
After a quick glance over the options, there are a couple things we can focus on:
1. took vs. taking (parallelism)
2. drew vs. drawing (meaning)Let's start with #1 on our list, which mainly deals with parallelism. If we look at the entire sentence carefully, we can find clues as to what we need to make sure is parallel:
The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions, then taking turns drawing on the funds for home mortgages.
These two actions MUST be written using parallel structure! Let's see which options do this correctly, and then rule out those that don't:
(A) subscriptions, then
taking turns drawing
(B) subscriptions, and then
taking turns drawing
(C) subscriptions and then
took turns drawing
(D) subscriptions and then
took turns, they drew
(E) subscriptions and then drew,
taking turns
We can eliminate options A, B, & E because they don't use parallel structure for the two actions (made/took) members do in the sentence.
Now that we have things narrowed down, let's tackle #2 on our list. To make things easier to see, we'll add in the entire sentence for you. We need to make sure the sentences are clear, concise, and make logical sense:
(C) The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds,
whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions and then took turns drawing on the funds for home mortgages.
This is
CORRECT! It uses parallel structure for the members' actions (made/took), and there aren't any issues with meaning or punctuation.
(D) The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds
, whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions and then took turns, they drew on the funds for home mortgages.This is
INCORRECT for a couple reasons. First, if you place commas before and after a phrase that beings with "which," it becomes a modifier. Since modifiers are non-essential clauses, we should be able to remove it without screwing up the meaning of the sentence. If we remove the phrase, here is what we're left with:
The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds they drew on the funds for home mortgages.That doesn't really make sense, does it? If removing a phrase that contains commas on both sides leads to an incomplete or confusing sentence, there is likely a problem with a misplaced modifier or poor punctuation - or both!
The other problem we have is a bit of distorted meaning. By putting a comma after the phrase "they took turns," it's now unclear what they were taking turns doing! We're not sure if they took turns drawing on funds for home mortgages, or they took turns doing something else AND THEN they all drew on funds for mortgages at the same time. This lack of clarity is a major no-no on the GMAT, so let's rule out this option.
There you have it - option C is the correct choice! It uses parallel structure and has a clear, concise meaning.
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