One view of the economy contends that a large drop in oil prices shoul

Basic principle - verb-ing of noun // noun
Simple verb-ing IS NOT PARALLEL TO noun

(A) lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation,
- Parallel elements - lowering interest rates (verb-ing) , lowering fears ... (verb-ing) , a rally (noun) , weakening of dollar (verb-ing of noun).
-Thus only 2nd and 3rd elements are parallel
-Wrong

(B) a lowering of interest rates and of fears about inflation,
- Parallel elements - interest rates and inflation - noun - noun = correct
- Parallel elements - lowering of interest rates and fears (verb-ing of noun), a rally (noun) , weakening of dollar (verb-ing of noun).
- all elements perfectly parallel
-Correct

(C) a lowering of interest rates, along with fears about inflation,
- Parallel elements - lowering of interest rates, (verb-ing of noun), fears (noun), a rally (noun) , weakening of dollar (verb-ing of noun). - Correct
- Meaning - Original choice says the drop will lead to lowering fears. This option instead says that the drop will lead to fears - Wrong
-Wrong

(D) interest rates being lowered, along with fears about inflation,
- use of "being" is wrong
-Meaning error similar to that present in option C
-Wrong

(E) interest rates and fears about inflation being lowered, with
- Use of "being" is wrong
- "interest rates and fears ... lowered" - clause + rest of the elements = noun phrase
-Wrong

Answer: B

Please explain me why individual options are wrong instead of why they are right.
Thanks.
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GMATNinja egmat daagh VeritasKarishma

DmitryFarber TommyWallach


Can you please help me to understand as to why A is wrong.

Option (A) has parallelism issues.

... a large drop in prices will lead to A, B and C
A, B and C need to be in parallel.

B - a rally in stocks and bonds
C - a weakening of the dollar

So A needs to use a noun too.
"a lowering of..." is correct.

Option (A) uses "lowering" as an adjective to describe interest rates and fears about inflation. That is not correct.

Option (B) correctly uses
- a lowering of interest rate and of fears ... (both things lowered)
- a rally ...
- a weakening of ...


"lowering" in is used as a participle for interest rates.
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VeritasKarishma

Thanks Ma'am your reply helps a ton.

Kindly let me know whether "lowering" as an adjective to describe interest rates is wrong for illogical meaning or such usage is grammatically incorrect as well.

"Lowering interest rates" would be correct in other situations such as:

Lowering interest rates is not the right strategy in the current political climate.

Here it is correct. "lowering" acts as a noun here.

In our original sentence, it is not parallel to the other elements.
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One view of the economy contends that a large drop in oil prices should eventually lead to lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar.

Subject : One View , Verb: contends

The list of parallel elements in the sentence are lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar.

a rally and a weakening are parallel. But lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar. the elements in this list are not parallel.

a rally and a weakening here are nouns whereas lowering is an adjective. We can make the list parallel by using a lowering,a rally and a weakening.

The correct option B.

One view of the economy contends that a large drop in oil prices should eventually lead to a lowering interest rates and a lowering of fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar.

EDIT: I just realized my reasoning for arriving at the correct answer choice matches that of veritaskarishma. I am thrilled..
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A humble request - Please give KUDOS if you like the below explanation. Motivation helps!
Let us first dissect the sentence.
One view of the economy contends
that a large drop in oil prices should eventually lead to lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar.
Here that is used as a subordinate clause that connects the two sentences.
We are tested here on parallelism. The list is a large drop… lead to A,B,C and D.
The list in the non underlines part is the list of nouns hence we are expecting nouns in the underlined part.
Lowering is a participle, whereas a lowering is a gerund and functions as a noun.

If you are still reading this post I humbly request you to please give KUDOS.

(A) lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation,
Here as well as is used in the first part of the list which is incorrect.
Here lowering is a verb ing modifier and not a noun entity as in the list in non underlined portion of the sentence.

(B) a lowering of interest rates and of fears about inflation,
In this choice we have two lists as follows
Lead to a lowering of a and b, a rally and a weakening
This appears to be a correct choice. We will keep this in the back pocket.

(C) a lowering of interest rates, along with fears about inflation,
The list is not parallel in this choice
A lowering of …, along with…, a rally and a weakening
This choice says that a drop in oil prices will eventually lead to fears about inflation.

(D) interest rates being lowered, along with fears about inflation,
The list is not parallel in this choice
Interest …, along with…

(E) interest rates and fears about inflation being lowered, with
The list is not parallel in this choice
Interest … and fears…, with a rally
Please motivate me and don’t forget to give KUDOS after you have finished reading the post.

One view of the economy contends that a large drop in oil prices should eventually lead to lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar.


(A) lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation,

According to parallelism, it should be a noun. However, "lowering interest rates" is not a noun but a gerund. Wrong!

(B) a lowering of interest rates and of fears about inflation,

Correct.

(C) a lowering of interest rates, along with fears about inflation,

Changes the original meaning. In the original, "fears about inflation" was lowered. However, here "along with" implies increased fears.

(D) interest rates being lowered, along with fears about inflation,

"along with" is wrong (same as C). In addition, "being" is awkward.

(E) interest rates and fears about inflation being lowered, with

"being" awkward. and ", with" destroys the parallelism as well.
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One view of the economy contends that a large drop in oil prices should eventually lead to lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar.


(A) lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation,

According to parallelism, it should be a noun. However, "lowering interest rates" is not a noun but a gerund. Wrong!

(B) a lowering of interest rates and of fears about inflation,

Correct.

(C) a lowering of interest rates, along with fears about inflation,

Changes the original meaning. In the original, "fears about inflation" was lowered. However, here "along with" implies increased fears.

(D) interest rates being lowered, along with fears about inflation,

"along with" is wrong (same as C). In addition, "being" is awkward.

(E) interest rates and fears about inflation being lowered, with

"being" awkward. and ", with" destroys the parallelism as well.
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Hi everyone,

I scanned through the thread, and understood that the option A should be eliminated based on parallelism error. However, I'm still have a bit confused with option A. Could we consider "a rally in stocks and bonds", and "a weakening of dollar" are noun-noun modifiers to "inflation"? Then, the structure of option A is: S + V + that + S + V + "lowering interest rates, as well as lowering fears about inflation", inflation's noun-noun modifier, and inflation's noun-noun modifier.

Would you mind to help me understand my flaw in the analysis above
Thanks,

So, a is important in this parallelism right ??

GMATNinja
I was wondering whether someone could help me with option C, my issue is the following, in C we have lead to (a lowering of interest rates ,along with fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds and a weakening of the dollar) so the outter parallelism is ok , regarding the inner one (a lowering of interest rates , along with fears about inflation ) here we have a lowering of which can be distributed in both parts, a lowering of interest rates
a lowering of fears about inflation, so I do not understand what is the error in answer choice C is it a parallelism issue or some kind of meaning issue?

Hello.
I wonder if
"lowered interest rates as well as fears about inflation"
would be correct?

Because I think inflation is not doing the action, someone else is lowering it so it should be passive.

I am bad at SC, just trying to understand better

Thank you.

A, C, D are clear eliminations due to use of "along" or "as well as". Doesn't gel when you add those in front of element 1 in a four element list.
E gone for the usage of "being"

Does "a lowering" also have parallelism to "a drop" earlier in the sentence?
I understand that B maintains parallelism through the list; "a lowering of interest rates and of fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar."

But does this also have to be parallel to the "contends that a large drop in oil prices" part of the sentence?
i.e "a large drop in prices leads to a lowering of interest rates"

Hello GMATNinja,
Hope you're well enough. I'm writing here just to be sure the usage of the 2nd 'of' in the correct choice B. B says:
One view of the economy contends that a large drop in oil prices should eventually lead to a lowering of interest rates and of fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar.
it says:
--a lowering of interest rates
&
--a lowering of fears about inflation

Q: Why do we need the 2nd 'of'? Isn't it enough to write the following?

One view of the economy contends that a large drop in oil prices should eventually lead to a lowering of interest rates and fears about inflation, a rally in stocks and bonds, and a weakening of the dollar.

it says:
--a lowering of interest rates
&
--a lowering of fears about inflation
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Parallelism check
part after lead to should be parallel to "a rally" " a weakening"
A,D and E - out - parallelism is broken

, and before a weakening means a list is formed
in correct parallelism in C after a lowering of interest rates.... C is out

Right option B

Logically does a lowering of fears about X makes sense ?????
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