Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as

Question

Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing  fire safety advice, preventing crises rather than merely responding to them.

A. Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing

B. Not only fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, it is the responsibility of firefighters to inspect buildings and provide

C. Not only do firefighters’ responsibilities include fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, but also they inspect buildings and provide

D. When firefighters fulfill their responsibilities, it’s not just fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspecting buildings and providing

E. In fulfilling their responsibilities, firefighters not only fight fires and provide emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspect buildings and provide

Source: TTP Beta Testing

MartyTargetTestPrep · Accepted Answer

(A) Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing fire safety advice, preventing crises rather than merely responding to them.

First, a modifier beginning with "Along with" requires something to be along with the things listed after "Along with". Here is an example.

Along with monkeys and other mammals, birds live in the trees of the rain forest.

Choice A, says "Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services ..., firefighters' responsibilities are ..." So choice A conveys that the responsibilities are along with fighting fires and providing emergency services, whereas the truth is that fighting fires and providing emergency services ARE responsibilities.

Then the sentence goes on to say "firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing fire safety advice, preventing crises rather than merely responding to them."

That section conveys an unclear meaning, which is possibly that the responsibilities themselves are inspecting buildings and providing fire safety advice, preventing crises.

In fact, one possible reading of the sentence is that the responsibilities themselves are inspecting buildings and providing advice, along with fighting fires and providing emergency services.

At best the sentence could be read as saying basically that firefighters' responsibilities are to inspect buildings and provide fire safety advice, but then "Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services" does not really fit, as the sentence is conveying that the responsibilities are inspecting and providing fire safety advice.

Here's an analogous example.

Along with John and Jim, the passengers in the car are Sue and Sarah.

So are John and Jim in the car? The sentence seems to convey that the passengers are only Sue and Sarah.

Even if we were to solve the "Along with" issue by changing "are" to "include", we would have the following, in which there is no logical agent of "preventing ... rather than responding".

Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities include inspecting buildings and providing fire safety advice, preventing crises rather than merely responding to them.

So A is awkward and does not effectively convey the intended meaning of the sentence.

nailin16 · Answer

I believe A is correct coz using POE

B uses not only..but 'but also' is missing
C not only X but also Y
Here X and T arnt parallel
D idiom error
E seems fine too grammatically but is wordy in fulfilling their responsibilities..

Sent from my SM-G600FY using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

Teerex · Answer

Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing  fire safety advice, preventing crises rather than merely responding to them.

A. Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing...  Wrong. the way it is written "preventing crises rather than merely responding to them" become just another responsibility in the list, which is not what the author intends. Also I feel it must be "responsibilities  include ..

B. Not only fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, it is the responsibility of firefighters to inspect buildings and provide... Wrong.Not only X but also Y is the correct form.

C. Not only do firefighters’ responsibilities include fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, but also they inspect buildings and provide Wrong. Parallelism error.  Must be fighting, providing,  inspecting and providing

D. When firefighters fulfill their responsibilities, it’s not just fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspecting buildings and providing.  Wrong. awkward. Also "by" missing. It's not just BY fighting, providing but also BY inspecting..

E. In fulfilling their responsibilities, firefighters not only fight fires and provide emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspect buildings and provide..  Correct. Not only..but also form is correct, parallelism present (fight, provide, inspect and provide)

RR88 · Answer

Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing  fire safety advice, preventing crises rather than merely responding to them.

A.  Along with  fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’  responsibilities are inspecting  buildings and providing

B.  Not only  fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment,  it is  the responsibility of firefighters to inspect buildings and provide

C.  Not only do firefighters’ responsibilities  include fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment,  but also they inspect  buildings and provide

D. When firefighters fulfill their responsibilities,  it’s not just  fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspecting buildings and providing

E.  In fulfilling their responsibilities ,  firefighters   not only  fight fires and provide emergency services such as medical treatment  but also   inspect  buildings and  provide  
: Noun modifier - 'In fulfilling their responsibilities'; correctly modifies noun 'firefighters'.
: Correct idiom = Not only - But also
: Maintains parallelism = inspect X and provide Y

Option E

nks2611 · Answer

it's straight E 
a can't be the answer as the pronoun them has not any clear antecedent.

AR15J · Answer

Why Choice A is incorrect? Please note that I have already read all the posts but did not find a reason to reject choice A.

rohan2345 · Answer

A. Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing-  Incorrect.
Couple of problems with this choice. Firstly it should be firefighters’ responsibilities  include . Secondly there is a problem of superficial parallelism. The –ing phrase in the non underlined portion provides additional information about firefighters’ responsibility. Changing the sentence to the superficially parallel version as in this sentence would change the fundamental meaning of the sentence. This version gives all the activities equal emphasis, instead of making the last two activities of  preventing crises rather than merely responding to them  subordinate to the main activity  Inspecting and Providing .

B. Not only fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, it is the responsibility of firefighters to inspect buildings and provide- Incorrect.
 Incorrect Idiom. It should be Not only ____ but also and they should be parallel. Secondly it only fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment incorrectly modifies it is the. Thirdly ambiguous it.

C. Not only do firefighters’ responsibilities include fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, but also they inspect buildings and provide-  Incorrect. 
Although unlike answer choice B it corrects the idiom not only ___ but also. It cleatly violates the parallelism. It compares firefighters’ responsibility to they. Further They has no antecedent.

D. When firefighters fulfill their responsibilities, it’s not just fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspecting buildings and providing-  Incorrect. 
Similar error as A. Superficial parallelism. In addition this sentence can also be described what GMAC calls wordy and awkward.

E. In fulfilling their responsibilities, firefighters not only fight fires and provide emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspect buildings and provide-  Correct.
This sentence corrects all the flaws in the original sentence. In fulfilling their responsibilities correctly modifies firefighters’. Idiom not only___ but also is correctly used. And most importantly correct parallelism is maintained in that preventing crises rather than merely responding to them is correctly is used as subordinate to the main verbs inspect and provide.

Hope this Helps.

asis80 · Answer

Thank you

Sent from my LS-5014 using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

RMD007 · Answer

Hi Marty, Thanks for the detailed analysis of the answer choice A.

From your explanation, I understood that in the sentence - 
 Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities are inspecting buildings and providing fire safety advice

use of "Along with" implies that inspecting buildings and providing fire safety  along with  fighting fires and providing emergency services ARE the responsibilities.

Where as the intended meaning of the sentence is - Fighting Fires and providing emergency service themselves are separate responsibilities and thus A is incorrect.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Also is this part of sentence correct?

Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities include inspecting buildings and providing fire safety advice

AR15J · Answer

You saved me. I wonder why did I select a choice with so many flaws... Thanks once again...

I have one more doubt.

Milk along with sugar tastes good-- correct

Intended meaning -- we don't know whether milk alone or sugar alone tastes good, but we know that when they are used as one entity(combined), they taste good.

1. Correct me if I am wrong 
 
there are 4 departments(below) in an organization X.

1. Professional services
2. Product support
3. Development
4. HR

Along with profession services and product support, organization X departments are development and HR. -- incorrect

2. Please confirm whether above sentence is incorrect.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi.

Actually, that is not really what I was saying. What I mean is that all of those things are responsibilities, but there is no reading of the sentence that coherently conveys that they are.

The sentence is disjointed and illogically structured so that one can take from it one of the following.

- that fighting fires, providing emergency services, and responsibilities are along with each other, as opposed to fighting fires and providing emergency services being along with inspecting and providing advice.

- that firefighters' responsibilities are to inspect and provide advice, with no clear connection made between those two responsibilities and the things listed in the introductory or closing parts of the sentence.

- that firefighters' responsibilities themselves engage in the acts of inspecting buildings and providing advice.

While there might be a slightly better way of conveying what the above sentence conveys, it definitely works.

varun4s · Answer

A. Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’  responsibilities are inspecting buildings  and providing  (Firefighters are inspecting the buildings not responsibilities)

B.  Not only  fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment,  it is the  responsibility of firefighters to inspect buildings and provide  'It is the responsibility' does not relate to first part of the sentence)

C. Not only do firefighters’ responsibilities include fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, but also  they  inspect buildings and provide.  (First part shows responsibilities and second part shows' they' means firefighters. Not parallel and illogical)

D. When firefighters fulfill their responsibilities,  it’s not just  fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspecting buildings and providing.  (what happens when firefighters fulfill their responsibilities. Second part has nothing to with it)

E. In fulfilling their responsibilities, firefighters not only fight fires and provide emergency services such as medical treatment but also inspect buildings and provide  (Correct)

Kudos please, if you like my explanation

AR15J · Answer

Sorry  MartyMurray . I have a doubt. Please clarify.
Along with John and Jim, the passengers in the car are Sue and Sarah.

If above sentence is incorrect, why is the below sentence correct?

Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as medical treatment, firefighters’ responsibilities include inspecting buildings and providing fire safety advice.

VerbalBot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club VerbalBot: 

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

 This post was generated automatically.

Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Along with fighting fires and providing emergency services such as

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards