The new legislation governing presidential campaign contribution allow

Frankly speaking this question for me is one of a few in SC, that I have not ruled options out, but have seen atin option C and have decided, that it is what needed.
Because through process and at a group of events seem to hold somehow the parallel structure.
Would like to see comments.

The new legislation governing presidential campaign contribution allows political parties to raise money only through a process with high standards in contrast to a group of fundraising events that are unregulated and unsanctioned.

A) process with high standards in contrast to
B) process that has been standardized highly and not within - so long and bad
C) highly standardized process rather than at- good
D) high process of standards instead of - change of meaning, not high process, but high standarts
E) process of high standards rather than that of - it is bad, because group of events - it is a process itself; we do not need here one more process or that of

'Instead of' of is a complex preposition and must be followed by only noun

'Rather Than' is a conjunction and can be followed by any thing.


Be generous with KUDOS!

Dear sunny91,

I'm happy to respond.

Point #1: Parallelism is NOT a grammatical construction. Parallelism is a logical construction, and the matching grammar simply serves to mirror the logic.

Point #2: Parallelism does NOT demand a exact pattern of matching down to every detail.
Students routinely think mechanically about parallelism, as if each detail of one branch has to match, word for word, what's in the other branch. The GMAT SC loves to write questions that punish mechanical thinking about parallelism.
In fact, there can be all kinds of differences in the two branches, as long as the logical pattern of matching is clear. For example, verbs in parallel do not have to be in the same tense.

You can never simply read a GMAT SC sentence literally, at the word-for-word level, and determine whether the parallelism is correct. To understand parallelism, you always have to think about the logic: what ideas are being matched, and do the words reflect this?

Ultimately, the GMAT SC is not simply a test of grammar. On the GMAT SC, grammar and logic and rhetoric are all equally important--in a well-constructed sentence, those three work together to produce meaning. That's what the GMAT SC tests. Folks who focus purely on grammar miss most of what the GMAT SC is about.

Think about these two sentences.
1) Political parties raise money only through a highly standardized process.
2) Political parties do not raise money at a group of fundraising events that are unregulated and unsanctioned.
Both of those are 100% correct. The idioms are correct. Logically, they discuss two opposite scenarios--regulated vs. unregulated fund-raising. Thus, it makes perfect sense to put them in parallel:
3) Political parties raise money only through a highly standardized process, rather than at a group of fundraising events that are unregulated and unsanctioned.
Of course, as always, the common words are dropped in the second branch of the parallelism. See:
Dropping Common Words in Parallel on the GMAT

The two parallel pieces in #3 begin with two different preposition. This is precisely the sort of detail that seems a big problem to people with a shallow mechanical understanding of parallelism and is recognized as a total non-issue by people who really understand what parallelism is.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

proper comparison should be done...
"Process" with another "process"

C does it best...

The new legislation governing presidential campaign contribution allows political parties to raise money only through a process with high standards in contrast to a group of fundraising events that are unregulated and unsanctioned.

A) process with high standards in contrast to

it seems as if process is standard compared to a group : non sensical

B) process that has been standardized highly and not within

process is not within group ? : non sensical


C) highly standardized process rather than at
Correct comparison process and (process) AT groups ;

D) high process of standards instead of

wrong comparison : process of standard and group

E) process of high standards rather than that of

meaning issue : rather than that of --> rather than process of : non sensical


pls comment

Can someone elaborate more on this question? Also, on the structure of the CORRECT answer, as I came to the correct answer by POE

mikemcgarry

The answer is C
A incorrect comparison we can contrast only two process not a process and an event
B not within is wrong the sentence does not have correct comparison .=
C correct comparison and the choice is very elegant
D wrong it should be process of high standards.
E again comparison is wrong

Hi daagh , GMATNinja

I have analysed this question but i think i am missing some points here can you please analyse this question and validate my analysis .

Regards,
Arvind

Dear aceGMAT21,

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, with all due respect, I have absolutely no idea what your question is. I have absolutely no idea what you understand and where you are confused. As you may have heard me say before, one of the underestimated skills of a successful student is the art of asking excellent questions. See
Asking Excellent Questions
I really would love to be able to address what confuses you, but I would need you to make that clear. That blog will explain more of what I mean. If you ask a high-quality question about this SC problem, then I will be happy to respond.

Mike

Yes, sure mikemcgarry! Sorry for the confusion.

Can you please review my comments on the wrong answer choices and correct me if I am wrong in my reasoning for any of those choices. Also, I came to the correct answer by POE. So, can you please explain the correct answer?

Also, thanks for replying and listening to my queries!

Thanks.
-Varun

Hi Mike,
I will be obliged if you kindly explain the parallelism construction in the option c- through X rather than at Y

c) allows political parties to raise money only through a highly standardized process rather than at a group of fundraising events

With instead of in D, the statement reads:


The new legislation governing presidential campaign contribution allows political parties to raise money only through a high process of standards instead of a group of fundraising events that are unregulated and unsanctioned.


Ignoring all other problems, is "instead of" usage correct here? Isn't " a group of fundraising events" noun?

Hello sevenplusplus,

I will be glad to help you out with this one.


Yes indeed, a group of fundraising events is a noun phrases. So grammatically, usage of instead of is correct.

However, IMHO, in the context of the given official sentence, use of instead of is not correct because usage of instead of presents substitution - one thing in place of the other.

The official sentence talks about an all together a different way of raining money. It does not talk a about a substitute for the process.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Thanks Shraddha. Helps.


Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

Isn't comparison with "rather than" is enough instead to add extra "at" in the right answer?

mikemcgarry -- I'm a little confused since I always believed that "rather than" is used to denote a preference. Now the non-underlined portion of this sentence makes it abundantly clear that fundraising through a highly standardised process is the "only" way. It's not a matter of preference I mean. I used this as a split to eliminate C and E and went on to mark A as the correct answer. Now i'm confused about the idiomatic usage here. Would request if you can clarify

The new legislation governing presidential campaign contribution allows political parties to raise money only through a process with high standards in contrast to a group of fundraising events that are unregulated and unsanctioned.

Option elimination -
(A) process with high standards in contrast to - "in contrast to" is a comparison trigger. Here, "a process" is compared with "a group." Moreover, we also look at it from the perspective that to raise money, we have two choices. ".....to raise money through .....(prepositional phrase) in contrast to a group of ...(noun phrase) - not parallel.
Prepositional phrases function as adjectival or adverbial.
Noun Phrases function as subjects, objects, or complements.
(B) process that has been standardized highly and not within - "standardized highly" and not within a group" are awkward.
(C) highly standardized process rather than at-perfect. Rather than used perfectly to show preference between the choices and two choices introduced by the parallel prepositions phrases .... through... rather than ..at....
(D) high process of standards instead of - Through a process ..instead of a group.... wired. Moreover, "instead of" suggests substituting one thing with another. E.g., She ate an apple instead of a cookie. But "rather than" is used for a preference between two options. E.g., I would rather study than go out. Here, in the context of a sentence, the intended meaning is a preference between the two options and not a substation of one method with another.
(E) process of high standards rather than that of - "that" refers to "a process." But the sentence doesn't make sense. ....to raise money through a process...rather than a process ..." Moreover, we have a prepositional phrase on one end and a noun phrase on the other.