The defective thermometers will sometimes fail to register a fever whe

Question

The defective thermometers will sometimes fail to register  a fever when it is present and indicate that there is one  when it is not.

A. a fever when it is present and indicate that there is one
B. a fever when it is present and indicate that one is present
C. when a fever is present and indicate that there is one
D. when a fever is present and indicates its presence
E. the presence of a fever when it is there and indicates its presence

pqhai · Accepted Answer

The tip to pick a correct answer is to  see the non-underlined part "when it is not".  Technically, the correct structure should be " X is abc....when it is not abc..... ", ("abc" is adjective). Two parts (before and after "when") should be parallel.

The defective thermometers will sometimes fail to register  a fever when it is present and indicate that there is one  when it is not.

a fever when it is present and indicate that there is one
 Wrong.   "There is one when it is not" is  not parallel .

a fever when it is present and indicate that one is present
 Correct.  " one is present when it is not   " ==> Parallelism. (subject + is + adj when subject + is not  )

when a fever is present and indicate that  there is one 
 Wrong.  Same as A.

when a fever is present and indicates its presence
 Wrong.   "its present when it is not" ==> not parallel (noun vs clause)

the presence of a fever when it is there and indicates  its presence 
 Wrong.  Same as D. "its present when it is not" ==> not parallel (noun vs clause)

Hope it helps.

metallicafan · Answer

IMO, B.

C and D changes the meaning.

mrblack · Answer

I think it's B too.

a) wordy
b)
c) that there is one sounds strange
d) it shouldn't fail to register the time (WHEN...)...changes meaning of orginal sentence
e) very wordy

LifeChanger · Answer

confused b/w A and B..
but B looks the better option

kanhaiya · Answer

D, E are obviously out because of simple subject verb agreement issue..

out of A,B,C.. B maintains the parallelism the best..

liftoff · Answer

I go with B. makes more sense to me.
A and C out because there should always refer to a place in the GMAT
D and E out because of parrallism issues.....the use of its

malar · Answer

totally agree with supporters of B

prakhag · Answer

Went for B as well but can't really pin point any mistake in A!

ckarimanoor · Answer

Hi,

I am waiting for the final answer.

In my opinion, E could be the answer.

Though it is wordy, the usage is good.

ckarimanoor

synfist · Answer

Between A and B, I chose B because it has less number of pronouns. :roll:

petercat2009 · Answer

verb 'present' is needed to make proper parallel construction , therefore 'B' is correct.

skamal7 · Answer

Wrong. "its present when it is not" ==> not parallel (noun vs clause)
Can you explain this part little more elaborately.It will be of immense help dude
fever is present(clause)
Indicates(verb)+ its presence(noun)= clause
SO both the sides clauses are only there.SO please point me out where my understanding is going wrong

Zarrolou · Answer

pqhai's method is WAY too complicated and not correct 
 Wrong. "There is one when it is not" is not parallel.    "when" is NOT a parallelism marker 
Maybe I can give you an easier one

The defective thermometers will sometimes fail to register  a fever when it is present and indicate that there is one  when it is not.

register " a fever when " or " when a fever "? The latter changes the meaning, the correct construct is "register (what?) a fever   when  (-refer to fever-)", if you change the position of "when" it will refer to the verb and not to the fever itself.
C and D are out.
E is out because of subj-verb agreement

a fever when it is present and indicate that there is one
a fever when it   is present     and   indicate that one    is present  <==parallel, hence correct. "and" is a parallelism marker

happyinlove505 · Answer

I chose B

discarded A and C for " there is one when it is not" - "when it is not" should be preceded by "that one is ___"
discarded D for almost the same reason

sanpreetsingh · Answer

The defective thermometers will sometimes fail to register  a fever when it is present and indicate that there is one  when it is not.

A. a fever when it is present and indicate that there is one
B. a fever when it is present and indicate that one is present
C. when a fever is present and indicate that there is one
D. when a fever is present and indicates its presence
E. the presence of a fever when it is there and indicates its presence

E - "presence" makes sentence wordy, we can drop the presence. 
C,D - when is not needed in this context. 
A- "there" seems to be suspect in option A, B is more clear.

Hence, B is the answer.

abhishekmayank · Answer

I fail to understand that why so many replies are discarding the option A for the reason that it is not parallel. There seems to be a correct parallelism in both A and B, but not at the place where the option A is being faulted at, for missing parallelism :

In both A and B, the correct parallelism lies at the highlighted place :

A:
The defective thermometers will sometimes fail to register  a fever  when it is present  and indicate that there is one   when it is not .

B:
The defective thermometers will sometimes fail to register  a fever  when it is present  and indicate that one is present   when it is not .

Experts, could you help as to why B is preferred to A ?

VeritasKarishma 
 MentorTutoring 
 AjiteshArun

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  abhishekmayank . I agree that parallelism is not the offense in (A). We can just replace  one  with  a fever , though, and see why (B) would be preferred:

A. The defective thermometers will sometimes fail  to register   a fever  when it is present  and  indicate  that  there is   a fever    when it is not .
B. The defective thermometers will sometimes fail  to register   a fever  when it is present  and  indicate  that  a fever  is present   when it is not .

You want to look for a direct answer to the question,  What does the thermometer indicate?  The answer is  a fever , not  there is . Moreover, the end of choice (A) forces us to do a little backtracking to qualify the meaning of  there is a fever when it is not   . Compare this to the straightforward expression of vital meaning at the tail-end of (B):  a fever is present when it is not . (B) wins, hands down.

I hope that helps. Thank you for bringing my attention to the question.

- Andrew

abhishekmayank · Answer

Thanks  MentorTutoring  for your explanation !!

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The defective thermometers will sometimes fail to register a fever whe

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