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abhilashaa
my answer was A. can someone please explain why is A wrong?
Three items are describing the city :
Situated on ... surrounded by ...blessed with
they should be written as X , Y and Z
Not X and Y , Z ..thats what is wrong with A.
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Why C and not B? Is it the placement of the "ands"?
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aadikamagic
Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor and surrounded by hills, blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population, the city has just about everything a visitor could ask for.

a)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor and surrounded by hills, blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population
b)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor, surrounded by hills, blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, and a variety of museums, great restaurants, as well as a vital, multicultural population
c)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor, surrounded by hills, and blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population
d)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor, as well as surrounded by hills, blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population
e)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor, surrounded by hills, as well as blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, and a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population


This is a parallelism question where the list describes the city: situated.., surrounded.., and blessed... . If you notice, there is another list within this list: blessed with sunshine, museums, restaurants and population.
You need to place the "and" in the correct position to make the list proper otherwise it just sounds that all the elements are in parallel which is definitely not the case.

Thanks!
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A tricky one indeed. List contains more than one items. So there is no question of using as well as. Also, it is a typical question where 2 lists are maintained. Hence use of AND and its placement becomes very critical. [X,Y, and Z, A,B, and C]
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yes, a good question that will make anyone think before he or she chooses.
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aadikamagic
Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor and surrounded by hills, blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population, the city has just about everything a visitor could ask for.

a)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor and surrounded by hills, blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population
b)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor, surrounded by hills, blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, and a variety of museums, great restaurants, as well as a vital, multicultural population
c)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor, surrounded by hills, and blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population
d)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor, as well as surrounded by hills, blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population
e)Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor, surrounded by hills, as well as blessed with an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, and a variety of museums, great restaurants, and a vital, multicultural population

parallelism tested.
correct list:
X, Y, AND Z.

A - 3 introductory modifiers are incorrectly listed/connected
B - same error as in A.
C - looks good (both lists)
D - X, as well as Y, Z - no!!!
E - X, Y, as well as Z - again no!

less than a minute is needed to identify the parallelism problem.
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IMO C,

There are two parallel structures in the sentence. The parallelism goes something like this:

-Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor,
-surrounded by hills
-and blessed with

Now the second parallel structure

-an average of 300 days of sunshine a year,
-a variety of museums, great restaurants,
-and a vital, multicultural population

This parallelism is correctly visible only in option C
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The sentence wants to convey 3 things about the city.

the city is
    Situated on a splendid Adriatic harbor
    surrounded by hills,
    blessed with
      an average of 300 days of sunshine a year,
      a variety of museums,
      great restaurants, and
      a vital, multicultural population,

we express 3 things xyz as x, y and z.

with phrase is a descriptive phrase.

only C expresses in that way.

parallel construction is flawed in both A and B.
Options D and E contain same parallelism error and additionally uses as well as instead of and incorrectly.
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redone the question after few months. same strategy used - solved in 59 seconds! guess i was right last time :D
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mvictor
redone the question after few months. same strategy used - solved in 59 seconds! guess i was right last time :D

Please can you help me understand how should I know which elements should be parallel?
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