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

Good question, VIGHNESHKAMATH. You want to prioritize like elements in a comparison ahead of other concerns regarding parallelism. In this case, one element within the comparison, the second, simply branches, adding extra information about that particular element. Take a look at the options again in the context of the sentence:


Since rather than or instead of is our comparison trigger, we can look to each side for like elements.

(A) retirement (noun) rather than face (noun—infinitive) X
(B) retirement (noun) instead of facing (noun—gerund) X
(C) retiring (noun—gerund) instead of facing (noun—gerund) (strictly in terms of comparing like elements, and ignoring the usage of instead of, this option is better than (B)) √
(D) to retire (noun—infinitive) rather than facing (noun—gerund) X
(E) to retire (noun—infinitive) rather than face (noun—infinitive, with an ellipsis for to) √

After round one, with an eye on exactly what is being compared, only (C) and (E) hold up. Notice that the latter half of each answer choice branches: rather than face the threats... and [face] the rising costs. There is no need to seek parallelism between facing and rising, since facing would carry over as an understood element ahead of the rising costs anyway:

(D) rather than facing the threats... and [facing] the rising costs

You have to be careful not to chase the wrong targets in SC. Comparisons are heavily tested, and they are also tightly governed. If you have any doubts about an answer choice that contains a comparison, look to that part first and consider other issues thereafter.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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This is a 700Q in my view.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face => comparing “early retirement” vs “face”, noun vs action = wrong
Many people claimed past participate is wrong, it is not determining factor, the study conclusion can be referencing the doctor’s decision in the past.
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(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing => similar to above but subtly different.
Here facing is gerund, so effectively elected applies to both retirement and facing. So you are saying doctor had elected to retire instead of elected to facing the threats of lawsuits…; elected to facing lawsuits = wrong
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(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing; as above doctors don’t elect to face law suit
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(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing; between D and E, D lacks parallelism “to retire” vs “facing”
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(E) have elected to retire early rather than face -> no issues as listed above

As you can see, all options do not eliminate based on the simple rule of “instead of” vs “rather than”. You need to focus on meaning instead of rules

what about the and parallelism
can someone explain?

Why I cannot elect early retirement?

Hi AjiteshArun EducationAisle
Please help with below queries:

1. I am still not sure whether (C) has any grammatical error. Or it is just that (E) is more direct than (B), making it the winner?

(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face


2. Both of the below sentences use ''instead of''

Ex-1: I am ''walking'' to work instead of ''driving''.
Ex-2: Miguel is ''playing'' guitar instead of ''drumming''.

Now in example-1, ''Walking'' is parallel to ''driving''
But ''walking'' is a verb, on the other hand, ''driving'' is a ''gerund''
So, how these sentences can be grammatically correct? Because ''a-verb'' can't be parallel to ''a-noun'' right?

Hi Contropositive,

Option C does have a major error: it uses the unidiomatic {elected -ing}. When we use elect to mean "choose to do something", we use an infinitive with it. Here's an example:

1. He elected to take the GMAT early. ← This means he chose to take the GMAT early.

2. He elected taking the GMAT early. ← This is unidiomatic.

This is why option C is incorrect. We can't say "have elected retiring early".
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Hi AjiteshArun,

I understood why (C) is incorrect, but just wanted to draw your attention to the below query.
As ''instead of'' ends with a preposition, which must be followed by a noun, i can't see why ''walking''(Verb) is parallel to ''Gerund''(a noun):

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2. Both of the below sentences use ''instead of''

Ex-1: I am ''walking'' to work instead of ''driving''.
Ex-2: Miguel is ''playing'' guitar instead of ''drumming''.

Now in example-1, ''Walking'' is parallel to ''driving''
But ''walking'' is a verb, on the other hand, ''driving'' is a ''gerund''
So, how these sentences can be grammatically correct? Because ''a-verb'' can't be parallel to ''a-noun'' right?
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Hi Contropositive,

There are different opinions on this, but I don't recommend trying to look for parallelism around instead of. My recommended approach to rather than is different though (rather than is somewhat more complicated). You can find a discussion on rather than towards the end of this session on parallelism:



TL;DR: Prefer parallel structures around rather than, but also be aware that rather than can be used with structures that don't look similar. Don't look at instead of as an indicator of parallelism.
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In D why are we ignoring the fact that if "Facing the threats and "rising the costs" are parallel? We are considering the X rather than Y should be parallel, okay I agree but what about the parallelism with the "and" if we comply the above?

Hi anikpait17,

Rising is just an adjective there. The main element in the rising costs is costs.

Look at the sentence with the correct option like this:

1. Many doctors have elected to retire early rather than face (a) the threats of lawsuits and (b) the rising costs of malpractice insurance. ← Threats and costs are both nouns here.

Many doctors don't want to face the rising costs of insurance, and they don't want to face the threats of lawsuits.
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