One legacy of Madison Avenue’s recent campaign to appeal to people fif

In choice A, the plural pronoun their does not agree in number with the singular noun person. Choices C, D, and E can be faulted for failing to complete the construction One legacy ... is with a noun that matches the noun legacy; these choices use verb forms--the infinitive to realize or the present participle realizing --in place of a noun such as realization. Further, when in C and D is less precise than as in characterizing a prolonged and gradual process such as aging. B is the best answer

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What is this parallel structure people are talking about in this question.?? Noun to Noun Parallelism.

Hello Piyushggmat,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the parallel structure here is actually between two clauses - "people age" and "their concerns change"; both clauses follow the simple structure "noun + verb".

The parallelism marker here is the conjunction "as"; the phrase "as people age, their concerns change" is just an inverted version of the construction "their concerns change as people age", so the parallel structure here is "clause + conjunction + clause"; remember, any elements linked by conjunction must be parallel.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Hi Piyushggmat,

In the correct option, a noun (legacy) is parallel to another noun (realization):

1. One legacy of Madison Avenue’s recent campaign to appeal to people fifty years old and over is the realization that as people age, their concerns change as well.

The realization is a better fit here (for legacy) than either to realize or realizing.

This is more about logic than parallelism. After all, I can write, "Tim is tall," even though "Tim" is a noun and "tall" is an adjective, right?

So we want to ask ourselves: which of these constructions makes sense?

1) One legacy... is the realization that
2) One legacy... is to realize
3) One legacy... is realizing

A legacy, or lasting consequence, can certainly be a realization that something will happen. So the first example seems fine.

But the other two don't really make sense. In both cases, it kind of sounds as though the legacy is itself having a realization. Not terribly logical. So that kills (C), (D), and (E).

And then (A) has a clear pronoun-referent error, using the plural "their" to refer to the singular "a person."

That leaves us with (B). No parallelism required here.

I hope that helps!

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