After all the recent political changes, the Syrians are figuring out

Structures do not have to be exactly the same in order to be parallel. Rather they have to be similar and relate logically to the rest of the sentence in which they appear.

In this case, the prepositional phrase "with bricks and mortar" is used adverbially to modify "create the city."

So the phrase works logically with the rest of the sentence.

It is also a good match for what precedes "as well as," since "with bricks and mortar" works adverbially, and what appears before "as well as," "politically and socially," is essentially two adverbs.

So, the parallel elements associated with "as well as" are "politically and socially" and "with bricks and mortar."
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Hi

But with is a preposition. And if as well as is a parallelism marker, can we say that with Bricks and mortar is parallel to for themselves, politically and socially?

For and with both are prepositions, and we need a preposition(although not the same one).
So won't the parallelism entities then be

with bricks and mortars AND for themselves, politically and socially.

Can you try explaning this logic?

Thank you for your time.

Regards

Nitesh, you are overly focused on parts of speech in your assessment of parallel structure. You have to consider logic and the functions of sentence elements.

The fact that "for" and "with" are both prepositions does not mean that "for themselves, politically and socially" and "with bricks and mortar" are parallel elements. You have to determine which elements have similar functions, not just contain similar parts of speech.

In this case, the two elements that have similar functions are "politically and socially" and "with bricks and mortar," as both of those elements modify "create the city for themselves."
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Hello GMATNinja VeritasKarishma,

For this question I chose option B, but looking at Veritas Explanation I see where I went wrong.
To understand it better, can I see it in a way that the phrase ( sentence fragment) politically and socially is an essential modifier to sentence and thus needs to be included and thus we use as well as

Please shed some light.

Regards,
Rishav

After all the recent political changes, the Syrians are figuring out again how they relate to each other and to the city they have always lived in without quite fully owning – figuring out how to create that city for themselves, both politically and socially, with bricks and mortar.

A. to each other and to the city they have always lived in without quite fully owning – figuring out how to create that city for themselves, both politically and socially, with bricks and mortar.
(1) “to each other” = wrong; (2) meaning error: sounds as though the Syrians are literally figuring out how to create that city WITH bricks and mortar (laying brick by brick, mortar by mortar?) – nonsensical

B. to one another and to the city in which they have always lived without quite fully owning – figuring out how to create that city for themselves, both politically and socially, with bricks and mortar.

(1) meaning error: sounds as though the Syrians are literally figuring out how to create that city WITH bricks and mortar (laying brick by brick, mortar by mortar?) – nonsensical
C. to one another and to the city they have always lived in without quite fully owning – figuring out how to create that city for themselves, politically and socially, as well as with bricks and mortar.

Best option
D. to each other and to the city they have always live in without quite fully owning – figuring out how to create that city for themselves, politically, socially, and with bricks and mortar
(1) “to each other” = wrong

E. to one another and to the city in which they have always lived without quite fully owning – figuring out how to create that city for them, politically and socially, as well as with bricks and mortar.
(1) pronoun error: sounds as though the “them” is referring some other entity, NOT the Syrians

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