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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 09 Jun 2020, 03:08
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riagarg07
Not able to get how is A following parallelism and why C is incorrect
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Hi Ria, the structure of A is:

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed
(i) that the index was unlikely to continue going up and
(ii) that inflation remained essentially under control

So, (i) and (ii) are the parallel elements of this sentence. Perhaps what's throwing you off is that (i) is talking about future while (ii) is talking about past. But that's completely fine. Do remember that tenses and parallelism are two different concepts; for a sentence to be parallel, the entire sentence does not need to be in the same tense.

For example, following is a correct sentence:

Peter's teachers agree that he is a great student and that he will have a bright future.

Notice he is a great student is simple present, while he will have a bright future is simple future tense; but this does not impact parallelism in any manner.

C is incorrect because of incorrect usage of with. It is incorrect to say that "index was unlikely to continue to go up with inflation". There are two different statements that analysts agreed upon, and hence, in the correct answer, these two statements are connected by and.
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 09 Jun 2020, 03:12
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mansi1997
Can someone explain the Parallelism in this question?
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Hi Mansi, please refer to my post here.

Basically the parallelism is: most analysts agreed X and Y.

Where

X: that the index was unlikely to continue going up
Y: that inflation remained essentially under control.
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 25 Jun 2020, 03:48
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I did not understand the parallelism error in D. Could it not be viewed as
on the unlikelihood
- that index would continue going up and
- that inflation remained essentially under control.

Though, this does change the meaning but how is the parallelism an issue here?
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 25 Jun 2020, 04:05
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thecoronafever
I did not understand the parallelism error in D. Could it not be viewed as
on the unlikelihood
- that index would continue going up and
- that inflation remained essentially under control.

Though, this does change the meaning but how is the parallelism an issue here?
Show more
Hi thecoronafever, at the very least, the above interpretation is changing (in fact reversing) the meaning of the original sentence.

The original sentence says:

most analysts agreed that inflation remained essentially under control.

Your interpretation above conveys:

most analysts agreed on the unlikelihood that inflation remained essentially under control.
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 03 Jul 2020, 16:03
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Quote:
hi GMATNinja

Thanks for this super detailed post. i have a similar pestering question to ask though.

A says "that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained"
i do try to be intuitive with SC verb tenses and my intuition (the little voice in my head) says it should be "Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation WOULD/ WILL remained essentially under control."

I cant wrap my head around A without a "would" or a "will". Could you please correct my understanding?
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Interesting question! Remember, our job when evaluating an SC option isn't to try to read the question-writer's mind. It's to assess the logic of what we're given.

Imagine you're an analyst poring over inflation data from the last year. Could you look at that data and conclude that inflation would remain under control in the future? Sure. But you could also look at the data and decide that inflation remained under control during the historical period you're evaluating. Either scenario seems plausible, right?

All we know is that the construction in (A) makes sense: the analysts looked at past data and offered a conclusion about that data. At that point, if we don't see any other problems in (A), we need to move on and start looking for errors in the other answer choices.

I hope that helps!
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 28 Jul 2020, 01:44
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GMATNinja I have recently gone through your video on parallelism.
I applied the concept here for option B that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain

My analysis:The trigger word is 'and' and the parallelism of "For the index continuing to go up" is parallel to " for inflation to remain" and the stem is "it was unlikely". so why option B is incorrect? It seems perfect sense to me. please help.
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 13 Aug 2020, 22:48
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swadhakamal
GMATNinja I have recently gone through your video on parallelism.
I applied the concept here for option B that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain

My analysis:The trigger word is 'and' and the parallelism of "For the index continuing to go up" is parallel to " for inflation to remain" and the stem is "it was unlikely". so why option B is incorrect? It seems perfect sense to me. please help.
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Sentence B looks like this.
Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain essentially under control.
Note that parallelism marker 'and', as you rightly pointed, should have element X and element Y parallel to each other. But where should X and Y start/end.
The element X starts after 'that' i.e. 'it ... up' and Y starts after and i.e. 'for .. control.'.
Thus, the parallelism you have considered is not true parallelism. Also, note that 'continuing to go up' and 'to remain' have their own verb issues.

You should try to understand what most analysts agreed about - the gist of the sentence.
If you understand both concepts of verb and parallelism in depth, this question would be a cakewalk for you - shortcut for this question is to apply parallelism properly.
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 14 Aug 2020, 03:02
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I think there is no error in Option A, but still C seems more correct to me.
It connects Price index with inflation which is common thing so I thing Option C will be a better answer in this case. Someone please help me out.
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 29 Aug 2020, 09:58
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unraveled
swadhakamal
GMATNinja I have recently gone through your video on parallelism.
I applied the concept here for option B that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain

My analysis:The trigger word is 'and' and the parallelism of "For the index continuing to go up" is parallel to " for inflation to remain" and the stem is "it was unlikely". so why option B is incorrect? It seems perfect sense to me. please help.
Sentence B looks like this.
Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain essentially under control.
Note that parallelism marker 'and', as you rightly pointed, should have element X and element Y parallel to each other. But where should X and Y start/end.
The element X starts after 'that' i.e. 'it ... up' and Y starts after and i.e. 'for .. control.'.
Thus, the parallelism you have considered is not true parallelism. Also, note that 'continuing to go up' and 'to remain' have their own verb issues.

You should try to understand what most analysts agreed about - the gist of the sentence.
If you understand both concepts of verb and parallelism in depth, this question would be a cakewalk for you - shortcut for this question is to apply parallelism properly.
Show more
Thank you unraveled for weighing in! I'll add my two cents in case it helps anybody.

In general, even if the items in a parallel list are grammatically parallel, you always want to think about the meaning dictated by the parallelism:

  • In the correct choice (A), the analysts agreed on two things: (1) that the index was unlikely to continue going up and (2) that inflation remained essentially under control.
  • In (B), the analysts agreed that it was unlikely (1) for the index continuing to go up and (2) for inflation to remain essentially under control.

Notice that the meaning is ENTIRELY different in these two choices:

  • In (A), the analysts agreed that inflation remained essentially under control.
  • In (B), the analysts agreed that it was UNLIKELY for inflation to remain essentially under control.

So, which makes more sense? If the analysts agree that the index probably will NOT continue going up, why would they think that inflation will NOT remain under control? It's more logical to associate a stable index with stable inflation.

(B) has some other issues too:

  • In order to be parallel to "for inflation to remain", it would be better to have "for the index to continue..."
  • The pronoun "it" doesn't have a referent. That's not necessarily WRONG, exactly, but it's rare to see non-referential pronouns in correct answer choices.
  • (A) conveys the desired meaning, avoids any questionable parallelism, and avoids using a non-referential "it," so (A) is our winner.

You can also check out this thread for a discussion of "non-referential" pronouns like the "it" in this question.

I hope that helps a bit!
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 13 Sep 2020, 09:04
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Loser94
I think there is no error in Option A, but still C seems more correct to me.
It connects Price index with inflation which is common thing so I thing Option C will be a better answer in this case. Someone please help me out.
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(C) isn't terrible, but the meaning is clearer in choice (A).

In choice (A), the parallel structure makes it perfectly clear that the analysts agreed on two things: (1) "that the index was unlikely to continue going up" and (2) "that inflation remained essentially under control."

In (C), do the analysts agree that inflation is to remain under control? Or is the logic of most analysts something like this: "Well, we KNOW (somehow) that inflation is to remain under control. Because we know that, the index is unlikely to continue to go up."

That's an entirely (albeit subtly) different meaning. So the meaning of (C) is open to interpretation, but the meaning is unambiguous in (A). That makes (A) our winner.

One other superficial vote for (A) over (C) is that (A) avoids the repetitive "to continue to go up" structure. That structure certainly isn't wrong, but "to continue going up" is arguably a bit better, since it avoids the double infinitives.

I hope that helps!
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 15 Sep 2020, 08:21
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

Parallel question

A. that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained ("was" is parallel to "remained". Also, "that" is in both the first and the second part of the answer)
B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain ("continuing to go up" is not parallel with "to remain")
C. that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain (the description about inflation is an independent part, should not connect it using "with")
D. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up and that inflation remained ("would continue" is not parallel with "remained")
E. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue to go up and for inflation to remain nothing in parallel with "for inflation to remain")
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 26 Sep 2020, 13:16
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
rnn
Hi EMPOWERgmatVerbal


can you kindly share why it should be "remained" and not "remain"

secondly, in option B we have "for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain"... is this not parallel as well?

Hello rnn!

Thank you for your questions. I imagine other people are wondering about these as well! Let's go through them one at a time:

1. The verb should be the past tense "remained" to stay consistent with the non-underlined part of the sentence where it says "was greater than expected" and "most analysts agreed," both of which are also in past tense.

2. No, this is not parallel. When looking at parallelism with phrases or clauses, you need to include the entire clause - not just the parts that sound good:

B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain

If the phrase "it was unlikely" wasn't part of this option, then it would be parallel. However, since we're talking about parallel phrases here, we must include both phrases in their entirety. The only other way this could have been parallel would be to say "it was unlikely for the index to continue going up and it was unlikely for inflation to remain."

I hope this clears things up!
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
The choice B already said the same like your creative version, didn't it?
If I say:
I want to eat fish, drink Mountain Dew, and go to sleep. ('I want to' is fixed for every items)
I want to eat fish, to drink Mountain Dew, and to go to sleep. ('I want' is fixed for every items)
Choice B says:
B. that it was unlikely FOR the index continuing to go up and FOR inflation to remain
In this choice, 'it was unlikely' is fixed for both parts. So, why we don't consider it as parallel?
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 28 Sep 2020, 14:31
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rnn
Hi EMPOWERgmatVerbal


can you kindly share why it should be "remained" and not "remain"

secondly, in option B we have "for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain"... is this not parallel as well?

Hello rnn!

Thank you for your questions. I imagine other people are wondering about these as well! Let's go through them one at a time:

1. The verb should be the past tense "remained" to stay consistent with the non-underlined part of the sentence where it says "was greater than expected" and "most analysts agreed," both of which are also in past tense.

2. No, this is not parallel. When looking at parallelism with phrases or clauses, you need to include the entire clause - not just the parts that sound good:

B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain

If the phrase "it was unlikely" wasn't part of this option, then it would be parallel. However, since we're talking about parallel phrases here, we must include both phrases in their entirety. The only other way this could have been parallel would be to say "it was unlikely for the index to continue going up and it was unlikely for inflation to remain."

I hope this clears things up!
EMPOWERgmatVerbal
The choice B already said the same like your creative version, didn't it?
If I say:
I want to eat fish, drink Mountain Dew, and go to sleep. ('I want to' is fixed for every items)
I want to eat fish, to drink Mountain Dew, and to go to sleep. ('I want' is fixed for every items)
Choice B says:
B. that it was unlikely FOR the index continuing to go up and FOR inflation to remain
In this choice, 'it was unlikely' is fixed for both parts. So, why we don't consider it as parallel?
Show more

Thanks for your question TheUltimateWinner!

Make sure to check out our explanation in the comments, which explains why option B is incorrect. There is more to it than just the parallelism issue! :) :thumbsup:
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 03 Jul 2021, 08:33
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If A is the right answer, should it read as:

that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation would remain essentially under control

Also, why is E wrong? both clauses or items do not have to start with the same word (that) for it to be parallel, do they?

most analysts agreed (1) on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up AND (2) for inflation to remain essentially under control. It looks parallel to me.
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 03 Jul 2021, 17:26
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Loser94
I think there is no error in Option A, but still C seems more correct to me.
It connects Price index with inflation which is common thing so I thing Option C will be a better answer in this case. Someone please help me out.
(C) isn't terrible, but the meaning is clearer in choice (A).

In choice (A), the parallel structure makes it perfectly clear that the analysts agreed on two things: (1) "that the index was unlikely to continue going up" and (2) "that inflation remained essentially under control."

In (C), do the analysts agree that inflation is to remain under control? Or is the logic of most analysts something like this: "Well, we KNOW (somehow) that inflation is to remain under control. Because we know that, the index is unlikely to continue to go up."

That's an entirely (albeit subtly) different meaning. So the meaning of (C) is open to interpretation, but the meaning is unambiguous in (A). That makes (A) our winner.

One other superficial vote for (A) over (C) is that (A) avoids the repetitive "to continue to go up" structure. That structure certainly isn't wrong, but "to continue going up" is arguably a bit better, since it avoids the double infinitives.

I hope that helps!
Show more

i got your comment for A over C.

I still have some doubt .

E.g.
Most experts agree that most economies would still remain low , with high unemployment rate.==> similar to C
or
Most experts agree that most economies would still remain low and that unemployment rate would be high. ==> similar to A
unemployment rate is expected to be high if the economy is falling down.

I see C as 2nd part associated/entangled with part1 rather than an isolated fact as in A



Most experts agree that X economy would still remain low , with global economy to be low too.==> similar to C
or
Most experts agree that X economies would still remain low and that global economy would be low too . ==> similar to A
//part 1 and part2 need not be associated as global economy can be high even X economy low


please suggest GMATNinja EMPOWERgmatVerbal chetan2u DmitryFarber EducationAisle
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 17 Jul 2021, 07:58
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If A is the right answer, should it read as:

that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation would remain essentially under control

Also, why is E wrong? both clauses or items do not have to start with the same word (that) for it to be parallel, do they?

most analysts agreed (1) on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up AND (2) for inflation to remain essentially under control. It looks parallel to me.
Show more
Two glaring issues:

1) The clause "most analysts agreed on the unlikelihood," is incoherent. You can agree on an objective. You can agree that something is going to happen. But what does it mean to agree on an "unlikelihood"? I can't make any sense of the phrase at all.

2) The phrase "and for inflation" requires a parallel construction. Because "for inflation" is a prepositional phrase, you'd want a prepositional phrase to show up earlier in the sentence. We don't get one.

So we can eliminate (E), either for its incoherent meaning or for its faulty parallelism. (See what I did there? :-o )

I hope that helps!
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 04 Aug 2021, 20:48
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Can the list in the choice C "that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain" be eliminated just on the basis of Parallelism error?
Since there is no "and" between them, how can we consider them parallel? Is there any other error in this choice, apart from parallelism?
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 14 Sep 2021, 10:29
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!

This is a great example of a GMAT question that focuses on PARALLELISM! Let's start off by doing a quick scan over the options and highlighting any major differences we see in orange:

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

A. that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained
B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain
C. that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain
D. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up and that inflation remained
E. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue to go up and for inflation to remain

After a quick scan over the options, a few key differences jump out:

1. that / on the unlikelihood that
2. continue / continuing / would continue
3. that / for / with
4. remained / to remain

If we look more carefully at the sentence, we can spot what type of question this is:

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

When looking at the sentence as a whole, we see that the underlined portion contains the 2 things that analysts agree on - and those 2 things MUST be parallel! Any time you see a grouping of items, parallelism is a good place to start! Let's check each option to ensure the 2 items are parallel:

A. that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained --> PARALLEL

B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

C. that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

D. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up and that inflation remained --> NOT PARALLEL

E. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue to go up and for inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option A is the only one that uses parallel structure for both items! If you can identify what type of SC question you're dealing with, it is a lot easier to check for common mistakes (parallelism, modifiers, subject-verb agreement, etc.).


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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Is "Inflation remained essentially under control" is a proper clause? I thought remained is a verb-ed modifier egmat GMATNinja EMPOWERgmatVerbal
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 14 Sep 2021, 15:43
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kittle
EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!

This is a great example of a GMAT question that focuses on PARALLELISM! Let's start off by doing a quick scan over the options and highlighting any major differences we see in orange:

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

A. that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained
B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain
C. that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain
D. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up and that inflation remained
E. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue to go up and for inflation to remain

After a quick scan over the options, a few key differences jump out:

1. that / on the unlikelihood that
2. continue / continuing / would continue
3. that / for / with
4. remained / to remain

If we look more carefully at the sentence, we can spot what type of question this is:

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

When looking at the sentence as a whole, we see that the underlined portion contains the 2 things that analysts agree on - and those 2 things MUST be parallel! Any time you see a grouping of items, parallelism is a good place to start! Let's check each option to ensure the 2 items are parallel:

A. that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained --> PARALLEL

B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

C. that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

D. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up and that inflation remained --> NOT PARALLEL

E. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue to go up and for inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option A is the only one that uses parallel structure for both items! If you can identify what type of SC question you're dealing with, it is a lot easier to check for common mistakes (parallelism, modifiers, subject-verb agreement, etc.).


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.



Is "Inflation remained essentially under control" is a proper clause? I thought remained is a verb-ed modifier egmat GMATNinja EMPOWERgmatVerbal
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Great question, kittle!

Yes, that phrase is totally fine to write that way. If you were writing or editing this in the real world, depending on who your audience is, you might want to simplify how you word that so your reader isn't confused by it. However, from a grammar standpoint, it's fine.

We hope that helps! Keep tagging us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal with any other question you have! :cool: :thumbsup:
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Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte 24 Sep 2021, 21:28
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Quote:
Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.
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HI experts AjiteshArun GMATNinja
Quote:
the index was unlikely to continue going up
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I am confused about the verb tense in the first part of parallelism.

The main clause on the sentence is in simple past tense
Quote:
most analysts agreed
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, this is followed by a that clause modifying agreed. Now, in this dependent clause, The main verb to the subject the index is was going up (this is a past continuous tense)

The order is they agreed, in the past , that the index ,in the past from now but in their future, is not going to continue to go up .
Is this the correct interpretation of the sentence ?

or the other one is

The order is they agreed, in the past , that the index ,in their past , is not going to continue to go up .
This would be incorrect right ?
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