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Warning that terrorists remain determined to strike the country, senior government officials urged citizens to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior, taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe should terrorists succeed in launching an attack.

Govt is urging citizens to do three things:
1) Remain Vigilant
2) Report Suspicious behaviour
3) Take actions to speed

Only D is parallel, rest all are not parallel. IMO D
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(A) to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior, taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(B) to remain vigilant, reporting suspicious behavior and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(C) to be remaining vigilant, reporting suspicious behavior, and taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(D) to remain vigilant, report suspicious behavior, and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe..........Correct Parallelism...
(E) to be more vigilant in reporting suspicious behavior and taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe



OA:D
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Quote:
Warning that terrorists remain determined to strike the country, senior government officials urged citizens to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior, taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe should terrorists succeed in launching an attack.

(A) to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior, taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(B) to remain vigilant, reporting suspicious behavior and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(C) to be remaining vigilant, reporting suspicious behavior, and taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(D) to remain vigilant, report suspicious behavior, and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(E) to be more vigilant in reporting suspicious behavior and taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe

MEANING: Officials urged citizens to (1) remain vigilant, (2) [to] report…, and (3) [to] take… [a list must be parallel].

Ans (D)
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The best answer is D.

Meaning: Senior government officials urged citizens to do three things. These are that citizens are urged to: 1. remain vigilant, 2. report suspicious behavior, and 3. take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe. These three actions that citizens are urged to do must be expressed in parallel. With this in mind, let's take a look at the answer choices.

In A, there is an ambiguity here. We have a verb-ing modifier. Verb-ing modifiers preceded by a comma either state the results of a preceding clause or modify an entire clause. In either case, the results or modification must make sense with the subject of the sentence. In A, the verb-ing modifier modifies citizens. It does not make sense for the Senior Government officials themselves to take actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe. So per the grammar rules, taking action can modify both the Senior Government officials and the citizens. Let's assume it modifies the citizens, presenting such key information as a non-essential modifier is not ideal. It is best to present all three actions in parallel as in option D. Eliminate A.

B is not parallel. In addition, B presents reporting suspicious behavior and taking actions as non-essential modifiers. This is not correct. In fact, reporting and take are not parallel. Eliminate B.

In C, to be remaining vigilant, to be reporting suspicious behavior, and to be taking actions necessary are wordy and awkward. Eliminate C.

E changes the meaning of the sentence. Per its structure, citizens are only charged to be more vigilant and the other actions are presented as essential modifiers. Although the parallelism is okay, the change in meaning is wrong. Eliminate E.

We are left with option D, which clearly presents the three actions in parallel in line with the meaning stated above.

Warning that terrorists remain determined to strike the country, senior government officials urged citizens to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior, taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe should terrorists succeed in launching an attack.

(A) to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior, taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(B) to remain vigilant, reporting suspicious behavior and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(C) to be remaining vigilant, reporting suspicious behavior, and taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(D) to remain vigilant, report suspicious behavior, and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(E) to be more vigilant in reporting suspicious behavior and taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
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Only (D) has the correct parallel [to remain ..., report ..., and take actions ...] and hence is correct.
...senior government officials urged citizens to remain vigilant, report suspicious behavior, and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe should terrorists succeed in launching an attack.
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Bunuel

Competition Mode Question



Warning that terrorists remain determined to strike the country, senior government officials urged citizens to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior, taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe should terrorists succeed in launching an attack.

(A) to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior, taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(B) to remain vigilant, reporting suspicious behavior and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(C) to be remaining vigilant, reporting suspicious behavior, and taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(D) to remain vigilant, report suspicious behavior, and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe
(E) to be more vigilant in reporting suspicious behavior and taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



There are two main problems with the original sentence:

(1) The government authorities urged citizens to do three things: remain vigilant, report suspicious behavior, and take actions to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe. Consequently, these three requests from the government need to be parallel. In this case, each command should be in the infinitive form (e.g., to remain, to report, and to take). The original sentence wrongly constructs the phrase taking actions necessary to speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe such that it modifies the two previous actions. Instead, this phrase should reflect the fact that taking actions... is a third action that the government is urging citizens to take. In short, the three actions that the government is urging are not parallel and they should be.

(2) taking actions necessary... illogically modifies the command to remain vigilant and report suspicious behavior because these two actions would not speed up the recovery from an economic catastrophe. In other words, it does not make sense that remaining vigilant and reporting suspicious behavior (two actions that would occur before an attack) would be modified such that these are actions that speed up the recovery from an attack.

A. The three actions that the government urged are not parallel (i.e., to remain is not parallel with taking); the word necessary is not needed

B. The three actions that the government urged are not parallel (i.e., to remain is not parallel with reporting and take)

C. The three actions that the government urged are not parallel (i.e., to remain is not parallel with reporting and taking); the word necessary is not needed

D. The sentence is correctly constructed as the three actions that the government urged are parallel; the un-needed word necessary is omitted

E. The meaning of the original sentence is distorted as this sentence indicates that the government asked citizens to be more vigilant in reporting suspicious behavior (a single command) while the original sentence separated the command to remain vigilant and the command to report suspicious behavior; the three actions that the government urged are not parallel
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