In addition to the boom in tax revenue, the federal government’s books

Thanks a lot Ajitesh. This makes things more clear. My other concern is regarding parallelism checking. I mean why did you ignore "lower" and choose only "spending" to make it parallel to " a drop". Don't we see the first word of the phrases to match it with the other one while looking for parallelism.

Lower = adjective : A drop = Noun

Why are we looking only word "spending" and not the entire noun phrase lower defense spending.
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We are looking at the entire noun phrase (underlined in my previous reply). It's just that in this case, spending is the most important word in that phrase. That's the one we need (the first word may or may not be the most important). Think of it this way: if you were allowed to pick only one element in that phrase to replace the whole phrase, which one would you pick? You will almost certainly lose some meaning in the process, so it may be better to think of this as getting to the "least bad" outcome. For example:

The company benefited from lower taxes and higher government spending.

Look at this sentence as:
The company benefited from (A and B).

Now try to find which element (in A and B) fits best (least bad):
The company benefited from lower
The company benefited from taxes.

The company benefited from higher.
The company benefited from government.
The company benefited from spending.

So now we know that the company benefited from taxes and spending.

Try this in another sentence:
The government wants to lower taxes and increase its spending.

The government wants to taxes and its spending.
The government wants to lower and increase.

In this case, lower and increase are what we'll focus on.

Keep practicing. Don't limit yourself to "the first word", and let the rest of the sentence also help you.
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Thanks again. Your examples are crystal clear. I need to practice more and more to understand the deepness of //ism.
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VERITAS OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The most obvious decision point in this problem is the verb choice at the beginning, but it is a false decision point! All of these tenses create a logical timeline, so you need to look elsewhere for your decisions. At the end of the choices you have a series that needs to be parallel.
Choice B violates that standard by adding an additional "by" in front of "proceeds."
C does it in front of "the automakers,"
and D does the same in front of "a drop". In each case, either all items need "by" or only the first one needs "by," so all are incorrect. Choice E improperly connects the list, as "..., also by" is not a valid connector after a comma.
Only choice A properly connects the list and keeps it parallel.
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first question:In this part,a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, does it modify lower defense spending?

second question: As the sentence is connected by conjunction "and" before proceeds, then is "proceeds" the verb of the federal government’s books? If yes, then "proceeds" is singular verb, but subject,the federal government’s books, is plural.

please, remove my confusion. I'll be grateful.

1. The drop is actually part of the list.

The federal government’s books are being helped by
(a) lower defense spending,
(b) a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid,
and
(c) proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers that were taken over by Washington in 2009.

2. Proceeds is a noun in this case. Take a look at this post.
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i understand that parallelism is being tested over but isnt like used for comparison but how come Like is giving examples over here

VeritasKarishma
daagh

Suarab

I understand your point regarding the use of 'like' to denote examples. But let's not get stuck at that. After all it is not underlined and it is in all the choices. What is the point in trying to say that the author is wrong? We know such an error will not happen in the official test.

That aside, see what this topic can teach you. Certainly, it has some points on parallelism.
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Since 'like' is not a decision point, it is irrelevant. SC is mostly about "best available option".
Note that using 'like' for examples is common in colloquial usage and in fact, if you search English grammar articles online, you will get many that say that like is used to give examples. In formal language, we may still not accept 'like' for examples though grammarians will have their own views. GMAT grammar is also ever evolving and what was not acceptable yesterday, may become acceptable today in non underlined part and tomorrow even in underlined part!
The point is to keep an open mind in non "hard rules" cases.
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It's quite clear that parallelism is being tested here, but cmon Veritas "like" to introduce examples? I've never seen this accepted on the GMAT. I know this stuff changes all the time, but at least in the last 3 years I've always observed that when Like is used to introduce examples it is incorrect. Perhaps this is because so many young people, particularly Americans, speak saying "like". "Like you know, whatever"....lol

(A) are being helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers

(B) have been helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and by proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, automakers

(C) have been helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, and by the automakers

(D) are being helped by lower defense spending, by a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and (by) proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers

(E) were helped by lower defense spending and a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, also by proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers

E requires a conjunction.

Official Explanation:

the simplest way is to match the parallel elements in the list.. go slow to get it right

Abhi077 hazelnut AjiteshArun

Can you please clarify whether "the" in the automakers is absolutely necessary in this sentence? If "the" is absent, wouldn't GM and Chrysler be just two of many automakers, thereby skewing the meaning of the sentence?

The most obvious decision point in this problem is the verb choice at the beginning, but it is a false decision point! All of these tenses create a logical timeline, so you need to look elsewhere for your decisions. At the end of the choices you have a series that needs to be parallel. Choice B violates that standard by adding an additional "by" in front of "proceeds." C does it in front of "the automakers," and D does the same in front of "a drop". In each case, either all items need "by" or only the first one needs "by," so all are incorrect. Choice E improperly connects the list, as "..., also by" is not a valid connector after a comma. Only choice A properly connects the list and keeps it parallel.

Hi Sir,

How could we be sure that it is an ongoing phenomenon? The given sentence could be well suited for the past phenomenon as well, as no where I see any specific use of word that warrants that this activity is ongoing.

Let us first dissect the sentence.
In addition to the boom in tax revenue, - This is a an additive phrase.
the federal government’s books are being helped by lower defense spending,
a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler,
the automakers that were taken over by Washington in 2009. – This is a modifier modifying the GM and C.


(A) are being helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers
being is almost always wrong on the gmat but in this case we have no other better choice.
(B) have been helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and by proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, automakers
And by is incorrect

(C) have been helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, and by the automakers
Helped by … and by is incorrect.

(D) are being helped by lower defense spending, by a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers
Helped by…, by… and … is incorrect

(E) were helped by lower defense spending and a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, also by proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers
Were helped is incorrect.
Answer is A

Hello experts,
I have some questions regarding this sc problem.

1) How do we know that we need the present continuous tense, in some comments they mention that this is an ongoing action but what helps us to conclude whether a present perfect or / continous tense shall be used in this specific case.

2) in answer choice (C) "have been helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, and by the automakers" , If we ignore the tense issue, would an AND before "proceeds from the sales..." fix the parallelism issue?

3) a general question regarding parallelism , in most cases we see a x,y,and z structure, but would it be ok to have a x,y,z,and k structure (so are we restricted to 3 items or can we include more)

Thank you in advance for your time

Hi

Let me try to address your queries:



I'm assuming here that you are aware of the usage of present continuous tense for an ongoing action and present perfect for an action beginning in the past and continuing into the present. In this case, I would argue that we can use either tense for the action (that of the governments books being helped) since we can also consider it to have begun in the past. However, the original sentence uses the present continuous tense and there is no logical reason for changing that to present perfect. Also, both options using present perfect (B and C) have parallelism issues and hence cannot be the correct answer.



No, adding an "and" before "proceeds..." would not fix the issue because there is another "and" before "automakers that were...". This implies that this refers to entities other than General Motors and Chrysler while in the original sentence, this segment clearly acts as a modifier to General Motors and Chrysler, which makes sense. The meaning shift by adding an "and" before "proceeds" is not justified.



Sure, we can have two, three or even more items in the list of parallel entities.

Hope this clarifies.
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In addition to the boom in tax revenue, the federal government’s books are being helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers that were taken over by Washington in 2009. (700)

Federal government’s books are being helped by:
• Boom in tax revenue
• Lower defense spending, a drop (in outlays for benefits like Medicaid), and proceeds (from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler)
General Motors and Chrysler are the automakers that were taken over by Washington in 2009

I was a bit conflicted with the use of the present vs present perfect tense on this one. I think one can make the argument work either way. Either the federal government is being helped currently or the help started in the past and continues into the present. Due to this conflict, I switched over to other decision points mainly those that concern the repetition of prepositions in the lists.

(A) are being helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers Correct

(B) have been helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and by proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, automakers

-preposition by here is repeated twice for two elements of the list, but not all three

(C) have been helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, and by the automakers

-General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers, are not supporting the federal government’s books, but the proceeds from their sales.

(D) are being helped by lower defense spending, by a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers

-suffers from the same problem as B; i.e. the preposition by is only repeated twice and not three times (or once)

(E) were helped by lower defense spending and a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, also by proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers

-the insertion of a coordinating conjunction and to create a nested list does not make sense, even then, why start the second list with ‘also by’ rather than ‘and’?
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What marker in this sentence indicates that it is an ongoing phenomenon? Why would the present perfect or even simple past be incorrect?
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