In the last election, the voters authorized funding for public project

c) the construction of a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and the $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol.

Is C structurally parallel? I doubt because 'construction' is an activity while the $5.5million is a quantum of money.
The correct version should be the construction of a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and the allocation of a $5.5millon capitol renovation.
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E - public projects as diverse as what ? - we need nouns here. This gives importance to money involved rather than the projects themselves.

C is right as it properly uses noun phrases giving importance to the projects and parallel whereas in E public projects as diverse as $1.4 million and $5.5 million brings out wrong meaning.

In the last election, the voters authorized funding for public projects as diverse as constructing a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and a $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol.

e) $1.4 billion for constructing a water reservoir system and $5.5 million for renovating the state capitol.

The underlined part must describe the diversity of public projects NOT the diversity of funding.
Hence E is incorrect.

HTH

C it is

$ value of project is not same as project itself.......we have to name two projects in parallel form

C-"construction" and "renovation" are parallel. daagh, Aren't they ? Am i missing something here ?

ammu

Strictly speaking yes, if you say construction of $1.4 billion water project and renovation of the capitol. You may see that nouns considered are the construction, which is an activity and a $5.5.million, which is a quantum. The might convey the same meaning, but there seems to be a structural variation. I am not sure whether GMAT will wink at it.
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In the last election, the voters authorized funding for public projects as diverse as constructing a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and a $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol.

(A) constructing a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and a $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol
Parallelism issue- constructing (verb) and renovation(noun)

(B) constructing a water reservoir system for $1.4 billion and a $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol
Parallelism issue- constructing (verb) and renovation(noun)

(C) the construction of a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and the $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol
Parallelism issue corrected.

(D) the construction of a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and renovating the state capitol for $5.5 million
Parallelism issue- construction(noun) and renovating (verb)

(E) $1.4 billion for constructing a water reservoir system and $5.5 million for renovating the state capitol.
Parallelism is ok but public projects as diverse as ($1.4 billion is absurd)

C conveys the correct meaning.
Hope it helps

Here's the official explanation provided by the GMAC for this question:

This sentence indicates that voters authorized funding for a diverse array of public projects, of which two examples are provided. The underlined portion of the sentence must clearly identify these two projects as examples demonstrating the range of the authorized projects' diversity. It should distinguish between the two projects using concise, unambiguous, parallel constructions.

Option A: This wording confusingly suggests that the $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol was constructed along with the $1.4 billion water reservoir system, as part of the same project.

Option B: This wording confusingly suggests that the water reservoir system was constructed in exchange for compensation including both $1.4 billion and the $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol.

Option C: Correct. This clearly and concisely identifies the two projects using unambiguous, parallel constructions.

Option D: This absurdly identifies only one project, the construction of the water reservoir system, as the sole example of all the projects' diversity. It also absurdly indicates that the voters themselves personally renovated the state capitol.

Option E: This absurdly identifies the monetary amounts $1.4 billion and $5.5 million as examples of the public projects the voters authorized.

The correct answer is C.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

Hello experts,
Could you please analyze the flaws in answer choice A , is it because of parallelism? The OE says that there is an issue with meaning.

Hello, UNSTOPPABLE12. Yes, there is a meaning problem in the original sentence, and it has to do with the implied action that carries over into the parallel entity, the renovation. Consider the sentence with an eye on what should be parallel entities and objects:

In the last election, the voters authorized funding for public projects as diverse as constructing a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and a $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol.

We are led to believe that X and Y will appear in the sentence, and since X has constructing before the object, we can read the second gerundive phrase as an extension of constructing unless we see another action (e.g., putting together, even if renovating would be better). It makes no sense to say constructing a renovation, and that is the meaning issue that hampers the original sentence.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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can a noun and a gerund be parallel?

Hey pk6969, yes. A gerund is a nothing but a noun-phrase. So yes, they can be parallel.

Not sure whether the OA posted here is correct.

I got this question in the Official GMAT Prep Practice Set 2.
The OA here is "the construction of a $1.4 billion water reservoir system and the $5.5 million renovation of the state capitol" but the OA in GMAT Prep is "constructing a water reservation system for $1.4 billion and renovating the state capitol for $5.5 million."
see screenshot below:

Hello, Sambon. Thank you for providing a screenshot. I suspect that there were two versions of the question that were released, a case I have encountered with other SC questions from one Question Pack or another. Answer choices (C) and (D) are different enough that I cannot attribute the discrepancies to a typo or two. Interestingly enough, the OE provided above by ChiranjeevSingh clearly describes a different question: otherwise, the explanation to answer choice (D) would make no sense ("only one project").

Bunuel, would you please create a separate thread for the question shown in the screenshot above? (I am not sure how easy it is to move specific posts to other threads, but the one by ChiranjeevSingh would belong in that other thread.)

Thank you.

- Andrew
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