According to the teachings of the Buddhist and Hindu

Sorry. Have you heard of the saying -

To see is to believe

This is parallel to ----> To attain nirvana is to enter a state of supreme liberation

Does that rings?

Try to visualize ||ism like listing. To form a list for any parallel structure, there has to be a main clause preceding the parallel structure. In this case, "According to the teachings of the Buddhist and Hindu religions.." is really a subordinate clause which can not stand by itself as a main clause. || structure typically start after sub+verb, or ...+To, but never starts with a subordinate clause. I hope it helps!

Not sold on "D" here. What is the source of this question?

My instinct certainly told me to pick that answer choice since it is idiomatic, but I picked A and here is why:

"according to the teachings of.." needs a subject to work with. It is modifying the upcoming noun. "Attaining nirvana" is a noun and therefore it makes sense. Also, it seems that the parallelism is forced in the explanation. The modifier "leaving behind the desires..." is just that--a modifier! It is a consequence of attaining nirvana.

Let me give an example to illustrate this better:

"According to the latest research, eating a whole foods plant based diet leads to a better body, eradicating heart disease."

Now, in the sentence above "Eating a whole foods plant based diet" is the subject and it is being appropriately modified by both "according to the..." and "eradicating heart disease." Also, it is perfectly clear that there is no parallelism going on here. Another way to write the sentence would be:

"Eating a whole foods plant based diet, according to the latest research, leads to a better body, eradicating heart disease."

Admittedly the sentence is more confusing to parse than the original, however one can see that there is no parallelism happening in the sentence.

I just really want to draw attention to the fact that parallelism seems forced in the original explanation, and I would seriously consider the source of the question before accepting the answer choice.

edit: hahaahahaha. Never mind. I misread the explanation. The parallelism is between "attaining" and "entering"! The answer makes sense with that context.

here, teachings of bhudha n hindu is a noun phrase and actually we can rewrite the sentence as according to bhudha and hindu teachings, attaining nirvachana.....
the question is on noun modifiers and here''of bhudha n hindu'' is a prepoistion which modifies teachings,even though here attaining(modifier) is not closer to teaching(noun),it is modifying teachings.
so i think right answer is "A"

Dineesha, This is a Parallelism Question.

If you break down this part "To attain nirvana is to enter X" you can rephrase it like ................ "To attain nirvana = entering X" It is a comparison and hence the two parts being compared have to be parallel.

So the answer haas to be either
Attaning nirvana is entering X
To attain Nirvana is to enter X .. Only this option is given . This is also idiomatic usage.

how it can be B ? the to " attain" means the process completed which contradicts the "entering " - which says the process is going on ?
This is parallelism Q which signifies that the either A or D may be correct. I guess looking toward the structure of third clause; the answer should have been A, as the third clause indicate that the process of Nirvana is continues through a period of time. Since we don't about the tense status; we need to compromise to the participle forms of present.

It is not about parallelism. The question is testing dangling modifier and infinitive verb form of the sentence. The original sentence contains 3 dangling modifiers 'according.....,attaining.......,leaving....." with no proper verb at all. So in 2nd part of sentence we need verb form to correct it. So of all the options D has infinitive and modifiers are clear.

Friends,
the Original Sentence is :
According to the teachings of the Buddhist and Hindu religions, attaining nirvana is to enter a state of supreme liberation, leaving behind the desires that perpetuate the cycle of death and rebirth.
now let's tweak it a bit based on the modifying phrases,

Attaining nirvana is to enter a state of supreme liberation,leaving behind the desires that perpetuate the cycle of death and rebirth, according to the teachings of the Buddhist and Hindu religions

Meaning stays the same isn't it...

Now focus: the modified sentence starts with the word "ATTAINING", which is an -ing modifier. now there is aa rule:
1. Any sentence starting with -ing, has to modify the immediate noun in the succeeding phrase. In this sentence do u see that? No, i suppose.
this rules out A & E
Among B,C and D : to X is to Y correctly supports parallelism

Hope this helps.

To understand this question one should refer MGMAT SC, chapter 11.

Bouquet of flower is giving of love. This sentence is incorrect because we can not make gerund noun parallel with proper noun.

Similarly proper noun is allowed to be parallel only to proper noun.

In (A) Attaining can't be parallel to infinitive noun to enter. Similarly in (B) to attain || entering. E is super wrong.

So we are between C and D.
(C) to attain nirvana is enter a state of supreme liberation. I hold this choice because I know that "to err is human" is a correct sentence, but enter is a verb not noun therefore C should be wrong as well.

(D) to attain nirvana is to enter a state of supreme liberation. D is most parallel and correct answer as well.

According to the teachings of the Buddhist and Hindu religions, attaining nirvana is to enter a state of supreme liberation, leaving behind the desires that perpetuate the cycle of death and rebirth.

(A) attaining nirvana is to enter
(B) to attain nirvana is entering
(C) to attain nirvana is
(D) to attain nirvana is to enter
(E) attaining nirvana is to be entering

Dear Kinjal,
I'm happy to respond to your PM. I must say, I don't know the source, but I don't have the highest opinion of this question.

It's not the strictest rule of parallelism, but it is considered good form to have the verb forms match on either side of the verb "to be." Thus
[infinitive] "is" [infinitive]
or
[gerund] "is" [gerund]
This question hinges on this rule as if it were set in stone, and that's too picayune for the GMAT SC. Sometimes authors who don't really understand the feel of GMAT SC questions hinge questions on this minute distinctions, hoping to make the question "tricky", when in fact its simply obscure and not perfectly clear.

That's my 2 cents.

Mike

i narrowed down to the following options :

C) to attain nirvana is
(D) to attain nirvana is to enter

although OA is D, i selected C.

everyone is talking about parallelism in option D.
but nobody gave proper explanation why option C is wrong?

According to the teachings of the Buddhist and Hindu religions, to attain nirvana is a state of supreme liberation, leaving behind the desires that perpetuate the cycle of death and rebirth.

what is wrong in the above sentence ?

According to the teachings of the Buddhist and Hindu religions, attaining nirvana is to enter a state of supreme liberation, leaving behind the desires that perpetuate the cycle of death and rebirth.

A. attaining nirvana is to enter --> wrong: <-ing> is <to->
B. to attain nirvana is entering --> wrong: <to-> is <-ing>
C. to attain nirvana is --> action after "is" is missing
D. to attain nirvana is to enter --> correct: <to-> is <to-> or <-ing> is <-ing>
E. attaining nirvana is to be entering --> "is to be entering" is wrong

I got the explanation for this and understood the paralleism.

But, I am not able to figure out the subject( parts of speech) for this sentence.

Can someone explain me the Structure of this sentence.

Thanks

Hi Vaibhav, looking at the structure of the sentence, to attain (an infinitive phrase) is acting as the subject of the sentence.

Definitely not a common scenario.

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