A new study suggests that the conversational pace of everyday life may

A new study suggests that the conversational pace of everyday life may be so brisk it hampers the ability of some children for distinguishing discrete sounds and words and, the result is, to make sense of speech.

We look for the two point of error:
1)So brisk requires the parallel structure so X that Y
2)"it hampers the ability of some children" carries over to the other part of the structure and must make sense

(A) it hampers the ability of some children for distinguishing discrete sounds and words and, the result is, it hampers the ability of some children to make

(B) that it hampers the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words and, as a result, it hampers the ability of some children to make

(C) that it hampers the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words and, the result of this, it hampers the ability of some children they are unable to make

(D) that it hampers the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words, and it hampers the ability of some children results in not making

(E) as to hamper the ability of some children for distinguishing discrete sounds and words, resulting in being unable to make

So let me get this clear. in this question since we had the marker "so brisk that", "the ability to..." becomes the main noun and we try to make the two infinitives "to distinguish" and "to result" parallel?

and in another case where the "so brisk that" didnt exist in the question we would for choice D. for example
"A new study suggests that the conversational pace of everyday life hampers the ability of some children for distinguishing discrete sounds and words , and results in not making sense of speech."

Hi AhmedMoharam89,

It is and that joins those two infinitives:
1. the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words and, as a result, to make sense of speech

There are multiple problems in your version of option D. Ability for distinguishing is not idiomatic, and results in not making is, at a minimum, extremely awkward.

In addition to what Ajitesh has mentioned below, I'd also say that "hampers" and "results" shouldn't really be in parallel here. In cases of parallel construction, don't check ONLY for grammatical parallelism, but also for logical connection between the elements. The "conversational pace" itself doesn't result in anything. It's the hampering of their ability that does. The comma (,) before "results" is also unnecessary.

Posted from my mobile device

AjiteshArun

ParamjitDasGMAT

Can we deconstruct the question here?

The open marker is "and" so we have 2 elements here. the elements maybe "hampers and results" or "to distinguish and to make".

what does it refer to? IMO, the only logical antecedent is " the conversational pace" because it can't mean the "study" or "day".
so if we rephrase: (A new study suggests that the conversational pace of everyday life may be so brisk that the conversational pace of everyday life hampers the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words and, as a result, to make sense of speech.)

OR

(A new study suggests that the conversational pace of everyday life may be so brisk that the conversational pace of everyday life hampers the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words and and results in not making sense of speech).

Even though, I have placed both sentences now, I can't see why Option D is still incorrect. I.e what is wrong in saying that a certain action "results" in something?

in such type of problems, how do I correctly identify The Root Phrase

I hope by this way you understand my point of weakness in this type of scenarios and address me how to rectify it.

Thanks

Hi AhmedMoharam89,

Here's the relevant part of the sentence:
the conversational pace of everyday life may be so brisk
that
it hampers {the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words and, as a result, to make sense of speech}

The ability to distinguish... and to make sense... is clearly connected to the children ("the ability of some children"). On the other hand, results in not making, apart from being very awkward, isn't connected to children.

1. it hampers {the ability of some children to distinguish discrete sounds and words}, and results in not making

This is read as "{it hampers the ability of some children} and {it results in not making}". Clearly, the second part seems to be a general statement, as it isn't restricted to some children.

There is nothing wrong in saying that a certain ACTION results in something (an outcome). The only problem? The "conversational pace of.." cannot really be thought of as an action. Which also further illustrates my idea in the first answer that the two verbs shouldn't be placed in parallel in this case (false parallelism).

Hope this helps

Posted from my mobile device

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.