bmwhype2 wrote:
When Congress reconvenes, some newly elected members from rural states will try
and establish tighter restrictions for the amount of grain farmers are to be allowed to grow and to encourage more aggressive sales of United States farm products overseas.
(A) and establish tighter restrictions for the amount of grain farmers are to be allowed to grow and to encourage
(B) and establish tighter restrictions on the amount of grain
able to be grown by farmers and encouraging
(C) establishing tighter restrictions for the amount of grain farmers are allowed to grow and to encourage
(D) to establish tighter restrictions on the amount of grain
capable of being grown by farmers and encouraging
(E)
to establish tighter restrictions on the amount of grain farmers will be allowed to grow
and to encourage First GlanceThe underline begins with the word
and. keep an eye out for Parallelism and Structure issues.
Issues(1) Meaning: try and establishThe original sentence has a meaning problem: members
will try and establish restrictions. Whenever you see an
X and Y structure with two verbs (like this one), check whether the logical meaning is actually
will try to establish restrictions.
How to know which it is? When the parallel marker
and is used, the sentence is discussing two parallel but separate verbs: the
members will try and, separately, the
members will establish these restrictions. In this case, the meaning is illogical. The members are trying
to establish; they have the intention
to establish these restrictions. Eliminate answers (A) and (B).
Although people will use
try and establish in casual conversation all the time, the meaning is still
illogical. The test writers are trying to get you to fall for false parallelism, but the sentence shouldn't have a parallel structure here.
Answer (C) is suspect;
establishing might be okay, but the construction in answers (D) and (E) (
try to establish) is better. Put a question mark next to answer (C).
(2) Idiom: establish restrictions forThe original sentence uses the idiom
establish restrictions for the amount of something. The
correct idiom is to
establish restrictions on the amount or usage of something.
Eliminate answers (A) and (C) because they use the
incorrect idiom establish restrictions for.
Parallelism: X and YThe original sentence also contains a real instance of the parallelism marker X and Y:
(A) will try
and establish and
to encourage(B) will try
and establish and
encouraging(C) will try
establishing and to
encourage(D) will try
to establish and
encouraging(E) will try
to establish and
to encourageAnswer (A) and (B) use the form will establish for the X portion. Neither to encourage nor encouraging is an acceptable match for the Y portion. Answers (C) and (D) pair a participle with an infinitive; both are not parallel. Only answer (E) offers a parallel structure: to establish and to encourage. Eliminate answers (A), (B), (C), and (D).
(4) Meaning: able to be; capable of beingAnswers (A), (C), and (E) indicate that the government is trying to restrict what some people will be allowed to grow. Answer (B) talks about what is able to be grown and answer (D) talks about what is
capable of being grown. Are all versions acceptable?
Allowed means permitted: the government permits the farmers to grow a certain amount of grain. What farmers are
able to grow or
capable of growing is a different issue. One farmer might be
able to grow more than the restrictions would allow while another farmer might be
capable of growing less than the restrictions allow. The government can't determine this; it just depends how much land a farmer has, how good she is at growing grain, and so on. Eliminate answers (B) and (D) for an illogical meaning.
The Correct AnswerCorrect answer (E) fixes the original meaning issue by using the construction
will try to establish. It also offers the parallel construction
to establish and to encourage.