The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent

Hey All,

I got asked to take this one on by PM, so here I am! I'm taking a break from the forums after today, however, so this'll be my last few posts for a while! Sorry!


The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was interrogated in a detention room.

Clearly we've got parallelism here (comma, comma, "and"), so that should be our main concern.

(A) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was
PROBLEM: WAS advised, told, and WAS interrogated. You have to put the "was" in front of all three, or else just the first one.

(B) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and
ANSWER: advised, told, and interrogated

(C) of his right to remain silent and that he could not leave and
PROBLEM: You only use "and" at the very end of a list. So you shouldn't have two "ands" in a row (except in the rare exception where the last item in your list is ITSELF a two part noun ("I like tuna fish, BLTs, and peanut butter and jelly." OR "The money is for growth, dividends, and research and development.").

(D) that he had a right to remain silent, could not leave, and was
PROBLEM: Advised "that" is okay, but now the list has started AFTER "advised" (instead of BEFORE "advised," as in answer choice B). It's logical that he was advised "that he had a right" and "that he could not leave," but you can't say "advised that was interrogated," so the third item isn't in parallel anymore.

(E) that he had a right to remain silent, that he could not leave, and was
PROBLEM: This is actually the same as above. Adding the "that" to the second item in the list just further necessitates it for the third item. We don't get it.

Hope that helps!

-t

The intended structure the text is: The suspect in the burglary was (advised, told, and interrogated). We can now see the unparallel intrusion of the word ‘was’ in the construction. Therefore, only B and C remain. C is wrong because of unnecessarily breaking the //ism by missing the working verb in the second arm. The verb 'advised' belongs to suspect’s right and is not a common verb for all the three arms.
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There are three verbs, which all need to be in the same form. We cannot have the 'was' in the original sentence, because it is passive. We need three direct verbs and only (B) gives us there: 'advised', 'told' and 'interrogated'. The proper idiom is 'advised of' so that leaves us with (B).

The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was interrogated in a detention room.
(A) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was
(B) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and
(C) of his right to remain silent and that he could not leave and
(D) that he had a right to remain silent, could not leave, and was
(E) that he had a right to remain silent, that he could not leave, and was
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There's actually a small trick you can try out on parallelism questions. For each verb, read the sentence up to the word "was" and then list out the 3 actions (verbs):
1) The suspect was advised (makes sense)
2) The suspect was told (makes sense)
3) The suspect was and was interrogated...? (Does this make sense?)
Removing the extra was...... The suspect was interrogated. (Much better so we don't need the extra was and hence B).

The words "advised," "told," and "interrogated" all have parallel form, which is great.

Having preceded "advised" with the word "was", there's no need to repeat the word "was," so (A) is automatically out.

If the writer did want to repeat the word "was," it would have been OK to write, "The suspect in the burglary WAS advised of his right to remain silent, WAS told he could not leave, and WAS interrogated in a detention room." It's not OK, however, to use the "word" only twice...

The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was interrogated in a detention room.


(A) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was-> "was advised, told and was interrogated" are not parallel.

(B) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and-> "was advised, told and interrogated" are in parallel. Let's keep it.

(C) of his right to remain silent and that he could not leave and -> that is a problem.

(D) that he had a right to remain silent, could not leave, and was -> that is a problem.

(E) that he had a right to remain silent, that he could not leave, and was-> that is a problem.

So, I think B.

VeritasKarishma - Pls review below understanding and suggest necessary changes.

The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was interrogated in a detention room.

And is parallelism marker in this sentence, and below are the three parallel items in original sentence.

was advised
told
was interrogated

Issue is with 2nd parallel elements i.e. told. it should be was told or was should be removed from each parallel elements. Below are the two ways to fix original sentence -

1. The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and interrogated in a detention room.

2. The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, was told he could not leave, and was interrogated in a detention room.

advised that he had a right to remain silent

is this construction correct.

what is the correct usage of advise

Yes, either "was" is common to all three or each element will have "was".
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Correct option : B

Original Sentence
The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was interrogated in a detention room.

Sentence Exam on: Parallelism
The suspect in the burglary was
advised of his right to remain silent,
told he could not leave, and
interrogated in a detention room

(A) advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was interrogated - Wrong
(B) advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and interrogated - Correct
(C) advised of his right to remain silent and that he could not leave and interrogated - Wrong
(D) advised that he had a right to remain silent, could not leave , and was - Wrong
(E) advised that he had a right to remain silent, that he could not leave, and was - Wrong

Hi VeritasKarishma

I have a doubt in choice D.

As per choice D:
The suspect in the burglary 1. was advised that he had a right to remain silent,
2. could not leave, and
3. was interrogated in a detention room.

Is there any error here that I am missing? It sounds logical to me.

thereisaFire: We have parallelism here. A list with 3 elements. Let's see if they are in parallel in option (D). Every element must work independently with the rest of the sentence.

The suspect in the burglary was advised that he
- had a right to remain silent,
- could not leave,
- was interrogated in a detention room.

The suspect in the burglary was advised that he had a right to remain silent. - Ok
The suspect in the burglary was advised that he could not leave - Ok
The suspect in the burglary was advised that he was interrogated in a detention room. - Not Ok. How can he be advised that he was interrogated?

Look at option (B) now:

The suspect in the burglary was
- advised of his right to remain silent,
- told he could not leave,
- interrogated in a detention room.

The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent - Ok
The suspect in the burglary was told he could not leave - Ok
The suspect in the burglary was interrogated in a detention room - Ok

Hence, option (B) is correct.
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Hi VeritasKarishma
Let us construe Choice D sentence as follows and points 1, 2 & 3 in parallel

The suspect in the burglary
1. was advised that he had a right to remain silent,
2. could not leave, and
3. was interrogated in a detention room

The suspect in the burglary was advised that he had a right to remain silent.
The suspect in the burglary could not leave
The suspect in the burglary was interrogated in a detention room.

I feel all the three clauses make sense but are connected improperly and also alters the meaning of the original sentence
I eliminated choice D because the 2 independent clauses i.e "The suspect in the burglary was advised that he had a right to remain silent" and "The suspect in the burglary could not leave" are just connected by a comma. (Though this sentence would have made sense but grammatically it is incorrect.)

Please verify my logic.

(D) The suspect in the burglary
- was advised that he had a right to remain silent,
- could not leave, and
- was interrogated in a detention room.

The three are not parallel. The suspect is the receiver of 2 actions (was advised and was interrogated) but the second element describes his state. It is awkward to put them together in a list.

If we change it to:
The suspect in the burglary
- was advised that he had a right to remain silent,
- was told he could not leave, and
- was interrogated in a detention room.

Now all three elements show clean parallelism. The suspect is the receiver of three actions.
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The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was interrogated in a detention room.


(A) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was
Either we use the helping verb with all the other main verbs or we keep it common for all three.
A incorrectly uses the helping verb “was” with the first and the last verb and not the second verb. Eliminate.

(B) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and
“Was” is common for all three verbs. Correct.

(C) of his right to remain silent and that he could not leave and
Adding a relative clause only for the second item breaks parallelism. Eliminate.

(D) that he had a right to remain silent, could not leave, and was
The second and third items are not parallel to the first item. Eliminate.

(E) that he had a right to remain silent, that he could not leave, and was
The third item is not parallel to the first and second items. Eliminate.

VP
GMAT SME

Honestly, "that" in options D and E doesn't sound so bad. But there is a different problem.

D:
Advised that he:
1. had a right to remain silent
2. could not leave
3. was interrogated
Why would he be advised that he was interrogated in a detention room?
E has a similar problem.

Focus on parallelism here.


The suspect in the burglary was advised of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was interrogated in a detention room.
(A) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and was
(B) of his right to remain silent, told he could not leave, and ( neat parallel structure )
(C) of his right to remain silent and that he could not leave and
(D) that he had a right to remain silent, could not leave, and was
(E) that he had a right to remain silent, that he could not leave, and was