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viswanath1
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winterschool
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It is D - as it caters to both: either-or and parallelism of to
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This is just my take - For A to be completely parallel, it should have been "in healing" and "in thanking" but because it is only "thanking" and not "in thanking", I don’t think it is completely parallel.
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But I believe if "in" is part of the root phrase, then "healing" and "thanking" are parallel

The question boils down to chossing between A and D,
"ing" or "to.."
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I have forgotten now, but I believe that GMAT has a preference between the two
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D is complete nonsense
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mysterymanrog
its either A or E
Sorry E, mistyped

mysterymanrog
D is complete nonsense
Absolutely
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mysterymanrog
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I think the usage if of "to" is wrong - it’s not asking for aid to heal if that makes sense
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Correct idiom is "aid in" not "aid to" and "either asking" is parallel to "or thanking"
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GMATIndian77
This is just my take - For A to be completely parallel, it should have been "in healing" and "in thanking" but because it is only "thanking" and not "in thanking", I don’t think it is completely parallel.
Read the sentence properly. A and E are both parallel, the rest are wrong
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mysterymanrog
I think the usage if of "to" is wrong - it’s not asking for aid to heal if that makes sense
Makes sense, "aid to" sounds as if, they are asking for help to heal their ills themselves whereas "aid in" sounds as if they are asking the goddess for help. The latter is most probably the intended meaning

I’d go with E
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SJ_SJ
Makes sense, "aid to" sounds as if, they are asking for help to heal their ills themselves whereas "aid in" sounds as if they are asking the goddess for help. The latter is most probably the intended meaning
Seems to be an idiomatic preference. Intended meaning does not exist in the GMAT SC
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It does actually, the sentence must always conform to what the author intends to say in a literal sense.
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I have rarely, if at all, gone for just idioms to eliminate options. GMAT does provide a couple of more hints.
But sure, I have seen students go with idiomatic preference arguments too.
Whatever rocks your boat, buddy!
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SJ_SJ
It does actually, the sentence must always conform to what the author intends to say in a literal sense.
GMATNinja has spoken about this - it is a myth, there is no reason why A is special

Idioms are used to convey a logical meaning, which is what the core of SC is about
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mysterymanrog
GMATNinja has spoken about this - it is a myth, there is no reason why A is special
Never mind, whatever suits you! I took the GMAT few weeks back and it didn’t really boil down to just idioms or myths
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SJ_SJ
Never mind, whatever suits you! I took the GMAT few weeks back and it didn’t really boil down to just idioms or myths
Idioms are not a core part of gmat sc anyway. They are useful to know but not the core

winterschool
Q2. Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea’s aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help. (A) in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help (B) in healing physical and mental ills and to thank her for helping (C) in healing physical and mental ills, and thanking her for helping (D) to heal physical and mental ills or to thank her for such help (E) to heal physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help Difficulty - Hard
the usage of to vs in is key here from a meaning perspective:

asking x aid to heal makes it seem like the asking is done to heal the person - this is illogical. You cannot ask to heal a person.
Asking their aid IN HEALING is more sensible - you want their aid to help you heal the person

so from this PoV, A is a much better choice. B,C and D can be readily eliminated for parallelism errors
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Kunal1801
D !
D has a huge parallelism issue. The usage of to leaves no sentence for either

For those not seeing the issue with D:
who were either (asking the goddess Bona Dea’s aid to heal... or to thank..) -> the usage of to makes the sentence parallel with "asking the goddess bona dea" rather than either, and either is left without a second clause.

in the first sentence this is not the case: (either were) asking... or (either were) thanking

and further more the parallelism in D makes the sentence nonsense
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