TooLong150 wrote:
According to the GMAT rules on parallelism, do the tenses of independent clauses need to be the same if joined by a conjunction?
For example, the below sentence that I found in a news article uses a simple past tense in the first independent clause and a present perfect tense in the second independent clause. Is it parallel?
He was a great state legislator and has been a fine Congressman and Senator.
First of all, 'and' will always not join two independent clauses. It can separate two entities in a list.
Consider the following sentences,
1. He was a great
state legislator and a
fine Congressman and Senator.
'and' here separates a list - being a state legislator and being a fine congressman and senator (
fine jointly defines congressman and senator)
2.
He was a great state legislator, and
he has been a fine Congressman and Senator.
'and' here acts as a co-ordinating conjunction and separates the two
independent clauses. The
has been induces a sequencing of events. 'was' indicates an action that happened in the past, and 'has been' indicates an action that started in past and continues into the present.
3. He was
a great state legislator,
a fine congressman and
a wily Senator.
'and' is used to connect the three
entities in the list.
4. He
was a great state legislator and
has been a fine Congressman and Senator.
(given sentence)This is the same as '2' except that the portion after 'and' is not an independent clause. 'and' is separating the two entities. (This sentence is a more concise way of writing '2')