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It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere 21 Nov 2018, 03:02
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Bunuel
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It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere birds of prey and ride camels regularly, is home to the largest hospital for falcons, a place where falcons from all over the world are treated in operating rooms, an ophthalmology department, and a pox area, and to the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.

(A) an ophthalmology department, and a pox area, and to the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.

(B) an ophthalmology department, a pox area, and the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.

(C) an ophthalmology department, to a pox area, and to the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.

(D) to an ophthalmology department, and to a pox area and the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.

(E) an ophthalmology department and a pox area, and the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:




Solution: A

Explanation: This long sentence requires that you properly assess its different components by selectively and properly slashing and burning. After looking carefully, you should find that the basic structure is this: “Riyadh is home to this institution….a place where blah blah blah is true…and to this institution, a place where blah blah blah is true.” Only (A) has the proper structure. In (B) “the largest veterinary clinic” is not part of the first series and needs to be separated with “and to….”. In (C) Riyadh is not home to all of these things in a series, as it makes no sense (it is home to a random ophthalmology department and pox area? No – those are part of the hospital). It is home to a hospital for falcons, which contains several parts, and to a hospital for veterinary medicine. (D) perpetuates the problem in (C), making it even worse because the incorrect series is not even parallel. (E) lacks the necessary “and to the largest” to show that the last part is separate. Answer is (A).
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ANOTHER EXPLANATION FROM VERITAS PREP:



There are lots of commas and lots of different elements in the sentence.

Logically, we see that Riyadh is home to the largest hospital for falcons and to the veterinary clinic for desert mammals. It can’t be home to operating rooms, an ophthalmology department, and a pox area! These are places inside a hospital!

So then, here is the structure of the sentence:

It is no surprise that Riyadh, …, is home to A and to B.

A and B should be in parallel.

Within A, we have a list of elements too.

A – the world’s largest hospital for falcons, a place where falcons from all over the world are treated in X, Y and Z

X – operating rooms

Y – an ophthalmology department

Z – a pox area

B – the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for

Therefore, to show parallelism between A and B, we have used “to” with both to show the beginning of the parallel elements. This separates them from the other set of parallel elements – X, Y and Z.

Note that only option (A) satisfies these conditions and hence is the correct answer here.

Takeaways

  • The first thing to do is to figure out the logic of the sentence to see which elements should be in parallel and which shouldn’t.
  • After that, put those that need to be in parallel. We might need to repeat certain words to signal the start of parallel elements when we have other intertwined lists too.
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It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere 10 Mar 2019, 04:28
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C and D redundantly repeat the word ‘to’, so they can be eliminated.
B has a parallelism issue, it should be ‘to the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals’ to maintain the structure.
E has the same problem.
So, A is the right answer.
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It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere 16 Nov 2020, 20:50
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Cant ellipsis account for "to" in option E?
Any help regarding that would be helpful.

I differentiated between A and E on the basis of comma(not asked on GMAT) as I thought ellipsis would account for "to".

Thanks in advance.
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It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere 18 Nov 2020, 07:37
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The two lists in this topic are:
A. ( Pertaining to the birds)— Home to 1. The largest hospital 2. An ophthalmology Dept. and 3. A pox area. – the third item in the list is properly separated by a comma + ‘and’
B. (pertaining o the desert animals)
Home to 1. The largest clinic; here no more item is in the list. However, to be in tandem with the forts list, the preposition ‘it’ has to be present.
The presence of the preposition ‘to’ in the second list is what differentiates A from E.
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I get the need for a comma in E, but why the need to repeat the preposition "to" again prior to "to the largest clinic"?
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It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere 16 May 2021, 13:39
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Quote:
It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere birds of prey and ride camels regularly, is home to the largest hospital for falcons, a place where falcons from all over the world are treated in operating rooms, an ophthalmology department, and a pox area, and to the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.

(A) an ophthalmology department, and a pox area, and to the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.


(E) an ophthalmology department and a pox area, and the largest veterinary clinic for desert mammals, a place where camels and other desert species are expertly cared for.
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Hi Experts,
Could you explain why choice E is wrong? It seems that both A and E are same on the basis of meaning.
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It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere 17 May 2021, 11:15
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I wanted to choose A but the statement " falcons are treated in an ophthalmology department " didn't make much sense to me and hence i thought B would be a better option.

How can someone be treated in a dept ?

GMATNinja can you please help ?
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It is no surprise that Riyadh, the Saudi capital where people revere 07 Sep 2023, 00:17
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