The American Red Cross strives to provide care, time, money, and blood

Look at the non underlined part and hints at the Parallelism.

Subject-verb agreement in B & C Strives should be parallel with works. Hence we are left with A, D & E

Working & in Working are not parallel to strives eliminate D & E

Also, look at the meaning of people in, people for their & people with here people in is more appropriate.

Hence A

The American Red Cross strives to provide care, time, money, and blood where needed and works with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in crisis, such as those affected by natural disasters, conflict, and famine.

A. works with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in - SV pair agreement and parallel
B. work with governments around the world for delivery of vital services to people in- SV pair not agreed in number
C. work with governments around the world and deliver vital services to people for their-SV pair not agreed in number
D. working with governments around the world, delivering vital services to people with-Not parallel
E. in working with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in-not parallel

A.

Sentence verb agreement - Red cross is singular -> it goes with 'works'
This takes out B and C.

D and E are out due to parallelism error: 'working' and 'in working' are not following the structure.

Question Stem : The American Red Cross strives to provide care, time, money, and blood where needed and works with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in crisis, such as those affected by natural disasters, conflict, and famine.

Breaking it down: The American Red cross strives to provide care, time, money where needed
[align=]and works with governments around the worlds to deliver vital services to people in crisis.[/align]

Error Analysis :
As per the meaning of the sentence, strives should be parallel to works and it is in original sentence.
American red cross is singular, therefore needs a singular verb "works".

A. works with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in
SV agreement and parallelism looks alright.
B. work with governments around the world for delivery of vital services to people in
work is not parallel to strives. Using "to deliver" sounds better than "for delivery"
C. work with governments around the world and deliver vital services to people for their
Same as B. "and" changes the meaning of second clause.
D. working with governments around the world, delivering vital services to people with
Working is not parallel to strives. We are lacking a verb in the second clause
E. in working with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in
in working is not parallel to strives.

Answer is A

Official Explanation

The American Red Cross strives to provide care, time, money, and blood where needed and works with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in crisis, such as those affected by natural disasters, conflict, and famine.

A. works with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in
B. work with governments around the world for delivery of vital services to people in
C. work with governments around the world and deliver vital services to people for their
D. working with governments around the world, delivering vital services to people with
E. in working with governments around the world to deliver vital services to people in

A review of our answer choices shows that verb form is the main issue with this sentence. We have several words that are either verbs or verbals (gerunds, participles, and infinitives). When verbs and verb forms are the key to finding the answer, it is important to review the portion of the sentence that is not underlined.

The first part of our sentence reads “The American Red Cross strives to provide care, time, money, and blood where needed and . . .” There is no comma before “and,” so we are not starting a new independent clause; what comes after the “and” needs to work with the first part of the sentence. The sentence starts with a singular subject and a singular verb + infinitive, so what comes after the “and” will need to either be part of an infinitive that works with “strive to ____” or a singular verb.

Options D and E use “working” and “in working,” respectively. “The American Red Cross working/in working.” That doesn’t make sense. “The American Red Cross strives working/in working.” That doesn’t make sense. “The American Red Cross strives to provide care and working with governments.” That doesn’t make sense. “The American Red Cross strives to provide care and in working with governments.” That doesn’t make sense! Options D and E cannot be the correct answers.

The beginning of the sentence uses a verb + infinitive construction, so a parallel clause would also use a verb + infinitive. At first glance, it seems as though none of our answer choices have that construction, but it is important to notice that the verb is followed by an object (with governments) and a prepositional phrase (around the world). If we ignore those, Option A has a verb + infinitive (to deliver) while Option B has a verb + prepositional phrase (for delivery). Option B is not the best answer because it lacks parallel construction.

Option C has the verb “work,” so it is trying to parallel the infinitive that follows “strives.” That is a correct construction, but then we have another “and + verb” in this option (and deliver). This option either wants to have three infinitive clauses in a row—"The American Red Cross strives to provide care and (to) work with governments and (to) deliver vital services.” While not ungrammatical, this is much wordier than it needs to be. It also ends with “for their.” The sentence would read “deliver vital services to people for their crisis.” In this situation, “crisis” would need to be plural, and it’s not. Even if it were, this is still more awkward than “for people in crisis.” Option C cannot be the best answer.

We have successfully eliminated four answer choices. Option A uses parallel construction and the correct verb form, is concise, and makes sense.

Option A is the best answer.

Well done, TheNightKing! Great job focusing on the splits to answer your question - and good job taking a cue from us over here at EMPOWERgmatVerbal on showing your work.

Kudos to you! Can't wait to see more great explanations from you on future questions!

Well done, Raxit85! You cracked the code on the parallelism and subject-verb agreement issues!

Kudos to you!

Well done, NandishSS! You figured out the easy splits to focus on, and hopefully it helped you answer this question quickly!

Well done, bussi1! You did a great job of quickly figuring out the two splits to focus on!

Well done, DinoPen! You cracked the code on this one!

Well done, suchithra! You cracked the code! Great job figuring out the 2 areas you needed to focus on, and making it clear for other students to see your work and thinking process!

Kudos to you!