A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors

Hi

Let me try to address your query:

When assessing parallelism, it helps to consider the sentence as a mathematical expression with parentheses. We have some leeway in where to place the parentheses, but, as in a mathematical operation, the terms outside the parentheses must be applied to every term inside upon expansion. Let us consider an example.

At the next meeting, the company directors will (assess the yearly plan, discuss the compensation policy, and make a final decision regarding closure of the Bosnian operations).

Note the placement of the parentheses - on expansion, the portion outside, "directors will", needs to be applied to each item inside ie; "assess...", "discuss..." and "make...". This is a correct construction and it maintains parallelism. Alternatively, we could also have:

At the next meeting, the company directors (will assess the yearly plan, will discuss the compensation policy, and will make a final decision regarding closure of the Bosnian operations).

Here, the parentheses are applied after "directors", which must now be applied to every item inside ie; "will assess...", "will discuss..." and "will make...". This construction is also correct and maintains parallelism.

Similarly in option (E), parallelism can be maintained either by having "to" precede both "retire" and "face", as you have put it. In this case, the parentheses open before the "to", as below:

A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors have elected (to retire early rather than to face) the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

Parallelism is also maintained as given in the option, in which case the parentheses open after the "to":

A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors have elected to (retire early rather than face) the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

Hope this helps.
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[quote="redferrocene"]A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

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(A) retirement not parallel to face. Also we want to state fact still exist so 'had' is wrong
(B) same as A
(C) are they electing b/n retiring early instead of facing... (Meaning)
(D) retire not parallel to facing
(E) correct
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A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face-> has found, so it must be have elected.
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing-> has found, so it must be have elected.
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing-> instead of is not used for contrast.
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing-> to retire is not parallel to facing.
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face-> above errors are corrected here.

So, I think E.

VeritasKarishma
threats -->noun
rising-->adjective
so, it seems that they are not parallel each other-the actual parallelism is in the silent position like the following..
A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors have elected to retire early rather than (to) face the threats of lawsuits and (to face) the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

is it ok?
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The parallel elements are 'threats' and 'rising costs'. Costs is the noun and 'rising' is a modifier to costs.

Look at another example:
There are two problems we are facing today - 'inflation' and 'increasing rates'
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EducationAisle, AndrewN, AjiteshArun MartyTargetTestPrep CrackVerbalGMAT

Guys would appreciate some help with B. OG says, retirement and facing are not parallel but I am not able to figure out why, as they are both nouns. To answer my own question, I wonder if it's because "facing" here is acting as an adjective modifying "the threats" and not as a noun?
Thanks

Hello, TargetMBA007. Yeah, the OG is big on airtight parallelism as often as such elements can be tightly mirrored. In answer choice (B), retiring, not retirement, would be perfectly parallel to facing, similar to what we see in (C). But there are other problems with (B)—the past perfect had elected, and instead of when rather than is called for—as I would hope the OG also points out. The takeaway is not to get too caught up on any given flaw in an answer if three or more appear. SC questions often test multiple concepts in the underlined portion, both grammatical and semantic. So, in short, a noun-to-noun parallel construct might not be good enough to satisfy the parallelism demands of the exam. Better to play it safe. If no reasonable alternative exists, then you might have to go with something a little skewed on the surface.

I hope that helps. Thank you for calling my attention to the question.

- Andrew
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You are right. Technically speaking, facing is used as a gerund here (a noun form, since facing is the object of preposition of).

However, as Andrew mentioned, GMAT would just prefer an option that does close mirroring of the parallel elements.
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AndrewN Thanks for responding Andrew. Definitely noticed the error with the past perfect too, but I was just curious about the Parallelism issue with this one. You mentioned "Noun to Noun" construct here, but I wondered if it's really a noun to noun construct, or if its wrong because technically its a "noun to adjective" construct, with facing being used as an adjective?

EducationAisle Thanks Ashish, does this mean that in all cases a gerund cannot be parallel to a simple noun? Also, still a bit confused about whether "facing" here is a noun/gerund or an adjective? The dictionary definitions of facing as a Noun and Adjective seem to imply that in this case it might not be a noun, but I could be wrong here?

To be clear, yes, facing is used in a nominative (noun) capacity here as a gerund. There is no such thing as an instead of + [adjective] construct. Instead of requires a noun to follow, while rather than is a bit more versatile, allowing for either nouns or verbs to follow.

CORRECT: I walked rather than ran.
INCORRECT: I walked instead of ran.

In option (B) of the sentence we are discussing, the shell of the sentence tells us what we need to compare:

Doctors elected A instead of B.

For more insight into the topic, I would recommend checking out this thread in the Manhattan Prep forum.

Happy reading.

- Andrew
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Thanks AndrewN. The difference between "instead of" and "rather than" makes complete sense, Thanks. I am still struggling to nail the parallelism issue with this. I see we have a gerund and an action noun here, is that the reason why they are not parallel?

Just been digging more into it, I found that:
* A simple gerund CANNOT be parallel to an Action Noun (Which is the case in our example I believe?) BUT a "complex gerund" can be parallel to an action noun?

I came up with this simple table to make sense of the different possible combinations between simplex and complex gerunds, action nouns and concrete nouns. Wonder if this looks right to you?



Please tell me I have nailed it .

Thanks

Hello again, TargetMBA007. I can see the allure of building fences around fences, as one of my colleagues said to me in graduate school, but these rules are not likely to help you when it comes to GMAT™ SC. I can think of zero cases, for instance, in which I have used a comparison between a complex gerund and something else as grounds for elimination. This is not to say that everyone learns the same way or should pursue a similar line of thought, but I stress a simple, holistic approach to SC, not one based in computer fashion on input-output relationships between specific variables. I have shared what I believe the OG meant regarding a lack of parallelism in (B). I would stick to the surface of the issue and move on, looking to pick up other lessons that are more broadly applicable to the task at hand. In short, I think you are following a linguistics path, not one that will aid you in answering SC questions correctly. (And I love linguistics.)

- Andrew
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Got it correct but still thinking a good reason to eliminate (C)? Parallelism seems fine.

Hello, lakshya14. Congratulations on getting the correct answer. Choice (C) is indeed parallel; however, the -ing form does not fit with the idiom to elect [to do something]. That is, elect is used in place of opt (similar to option) or choose here, and have opted/chosen retiring is simply incorrect. The infinitive form of the verb is needed instead: have elected (opted/chosen) to retire. The answer choice presents an example of why you cannot blindly follow parallelism. These questions are written carefully to contain such traps.

I hope that helps. I think I am ready for a break on this one!

- Andrew
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Thanks Andrew, that makes a lot of sense. I have to learn to tame the analyst in me

What about the parallelism between the face and the the rising costs? Why is this parallelism not considered?

This is the reason that understanding of intended meaning is so crucial before applying parallelism rules.

The intended meaning is that Doctors don't want to face the following two things:

(i) the threats of lawsuits
and
(ii) the rising costs of malpractice insurance

So, the above two things need to be parallel.

In other words, parallelism is not intended to be between "face" and "the rising costs"; parallelism is intended to be between "the threats of lawsuits" and "the rising costs of malpractice insurance". Both of these are indeed parallel - both are noun phrases.
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Hello aashigarg,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can help resolve your doubt.

Please remember, in a sentence parallelism is only to be maintained between elements that play similar roles in the sentence. Here, "retire early" and "face" play similar roles - they are the actions available to "doctors". By contrast, "the rising costs" is an object upon which the verb "face" acts, meaning the two are not supposed to be parallel.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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