Several Pentagon contractor firms are working on a new class of ventil

Isn't 'for' after and in D unncecessary? Woudn't the meaning be clear even without 'for'?

....... to prepare for

1. outbreaks of dangerous viruses
and
2. still another growing threat: the accidental.....

I have the Same question. The meaning should be still clear to prepare for two things - outbreaks and still another threat.

Hi VeritasPrepKarishma

I was able to eliminate B , C.
I am not so sure about A , D and E .
Although i do remember a rule regarding use of " and " where we have to keep keep same words before parallel entity .Here for is used correctly before two parallel entities .
E changes the sentence structure and the list is not proper in E
Please explain A and D and how to eliminate A on meaning ?

Thanks ,
Arvind

Hi arvind910619,

We use parallelism to bring clarity, better readability and brevity. But while doing so, MEANING must be retained. So you are right that A is incorrect because of meaning. Consider the following two structures of A vs D:

to prepare for outbreaks of dangerous viruses and threats. here threats is parallel to viruses but viruses can outbreak not the threats. This is the wrong meaning here because of wrong elements have been put to parallel.

to prepare for outbreaks of dangerous viruses and for threats
here threats is an entity in itself.

(C) outbreaks of dangerous viruses and still another growing threat of the accidental releases of nanoparticles, the infinitesimal and engineered fibers
(D) outbreaks of dangerous viruses and for still another growing threat: the accidental releases of nanoparticles, the infinitesimal and engineered fibers

Have confusion in these two answer choices,
isn't for already implied from the prompt in answer choice C, before still another growing threat ?

(C) outbreaks of dangerous viruses and [for] still another growing threat of the accidental releases of nanoparticles, the infinitesimal and engineered fibers

This makes the choice between C and D very difficult.

Hi chanskr,

To begin with, I am not sure of the quality of this question. My reasons are two fold:

1. Please check the non-underlined section:

Several Pentagon contractor firms are working on a new class of ventilator masks, not just for emergency and cleanup workers but to prepare for...

There is no harm in using, "not just...but" to mean "not only...but", which is the same as "not only...but also". However, when we use this construction, the fundamental construction of what comes after "not only/not just" is usually the same as what comes after "but also/but". In the first instance, it may seem that in the above sentence "for" = preposition after "not just" does the same work as "to" after "but". However, that is not the case. Whereas "for" definitely works as a pure preposition, the "to" part later works as part of an infinitive verb construction. I do not think we can treat "for" and "to+prepare" as equal. Consider the sentences below:

I have prepared the meal not only for my friends but to show how good I am at cooking.

I have prepared the meal not just for my friends but to show how good I am at cooking.

I have prepared the meal not only for my friends but also to show how good I am at cooking.

I have prepared the meal not just for my friends but also to show how good I am at cooking.

No matter which version of the idiom you take, the sentences are not very GMAT like because after not only/not just each sentence gives us the parties whom the meal is for and after but/but also we get to know the purpose of preparing the meal. So, in my opinion, grammatically and logically the above not only/just and but also/but portions are not parallel. I would consider the following sentence logically and grammatically parallel:

Several Pentagon contractor firms are working on a new class of ventilator masks, not just to protect emergency and cleanup workers (from dangerous exposure to whatever) but to prepare for...

2. I am not sure how the "still" in the "still another growing threat" portion of the sentence adds to the meaning of the sentence. If the sentence wants to emphasize on the fact there is something else too, then the better construction would be "yet another threat".

Keeping my objections to the question aside, I think you should approach choices C and D from a meaning perspective. Which one of the two gives the meaning (relatively) clearly? If I were forced to solve this question, I would probably pick D, as the use of the colon (:) in the choice renders a relatively clearer meaning.


Hope the above analysis helps!

Cheers!

NS

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