Early administrative decisions in Chinas Ming Dynasty eventually caus

I believe as well as is not strictly a parallelism trigger, and should be substituted by in addition to.


Shouldn't it be:

Early administrative decisions in China’s Ming Dynasty caused a failure to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure.

In other words, caused is outside the parallelism structure.

If "caused" is outside the parallel structure then why do we need A,B, and C in addition to / as well as / D? especially if A, B, C and D are all nouns / noun phrases? Why can't we simply say "caused A, B, C and D"?

Hi Ravi, your above question does not seem to be related to parallelism; you are basically asking what the difference is, between the usage of and and as well as.

Conceptually speaking, and places similar emphasis on all elements connected by and, while as well as puts more emphasis on the elements that precede it.

Whether to use and or as well as, depends on the relative emphasis that the author of the sentence decides to put on the various elements. I don't recollect a sentence where the only difference between two choices is and vs as well as

No. There's a "and" that precedes the element C as well. I am unable to understand the logic that if A, B, C and D are all nouns / noun phrases then why do we need two "and" or "as well as" especially if none of them is a compound noun. A,B and C as well as D (or and D) just breaks the parallelism for me.

The decisions : caused A,B and C, and failed D.
Why is this wrong from option A?

Early administrative decisions in China’s Ming Dynasty eventually caused a drastic fall in tax revenues, a reduction in military preparedness, the collapse of the currency system, and failed to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure.

(A) the collapse of the currency system, and failed
(B) the collapse of the currency system, and failing
(C) and the collapse of the currency system, also failed
(D) the collapse of the currency system, as well as failing
(E) and the collapse of the currency system, as well as a failure

GMATNinja please help!


How come C is wrong?

X caused (1), (2) and (3), also failed to do (4)

What is wrong/unparallel in the above construction?

I realize that you are not supposed to rewrite GMAT questions. However, if you added an "and" before "the collapse" --->

"Early administrative decisions in China???s Ming Dynasty eventually caused a drastic fall in tax revenues, a reduction in military preparedness, and the collapse of the currency system, and failed to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure."

Would this be correct?

Yes, with an "and" added there, the lists become logical.

MartyTargetTestPrep
Sir, if we do that then the sentence could be like...
Early administrative decisions failed to make sufficient investment...
How a decision failed to make investment? Can you clarify, please?

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Parallelism + Grammatical Construction

• All elements in a list must be parallel.
• Semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; comma cannot be used to join two independent clauses.
• Any elements joined by a conjunction ("as well as" in this case) must be parallel.

A: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism among "a drastic fall in tax revenues", "a reduction in military preparedness", "the collapse of the currency system" - all noun phrases - and "failed to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure" - a verb phrase; remember, all elements in a list must be parallel.

B: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism among "a drastic fall in tax revenues", "a reduction in military preparedness", "the collapse of the currency system" - all noun phrases - and "failing to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure" - a verb phrase; remember, all elements in a list must be parallel.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the "comma + conjunction ("also" in this case)" construction to join the independent clause "Early administrative decisions in China’s Ming Dynasty eventually caused...the currency system" and the dependent clause "failed to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure"; remember, semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; comma cannot be used to join two independent clauses.

D: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism among "a drastic fall in tax revenues", "a reduction in military preparedness", "the collapse of the currency system" - all noun phrases - and "failing to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure" - a verb phrase; remember, all elements in a list must be parallel.

E: Correct. This answer choice correctly maintains parallelism among "a drastic fall in tax revenues", "a reduction in military preparedness", and "the collapse of the currency system". Further, Option E maintains parallelism between the noun phrases "a drastic fall in tax revenues, a reduction in military preparedness, and the collapse of the currency system" and "a failure to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure"; remember, two elements joined by a conjunction ("as well as" in this case) must be parallel. Additionally, Option E correctly uses a comma to join the independent clause "Early administrative decisions in China’s Ming Dynasty eventually caused...the currency system" and the dependent clause "as well as a failure to make sufficient investment in vital transportation infrastructure".

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

Additional Note: Option E slightly alters the construction of the sentence by separating the final element of the list - "a failure..." - into an additive phrase, modifier phrases that add nouns onto another noun but are not part of the main subject of a sentence.

To understand the use of punctuation on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~9 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

GMATNinja, @‌egmatverbal, KarishmaB. This is a very basic question, but where i went wrong was that i was unable to discern that these were noun phrases and they had to be parallel. How do you make this distinction?