While industry insiders insist that fish farming takes a burden off

Ans :- The right answer set justifies the 2 sets of parallelism being tested in the given question
Points to note :-

Parallelism markers :- rather than ; and, than
In the original text of the question, its important to note that the elements compared in the "-- and --" phrase are not parallel - "by increasing the spread of diseases, parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems"
Issue:- "by increasing the spread of" can be repeated across parasites but cannot be used with astronomically increasing the level of pollution.

Option C corrects the error. Also harm rather than help is parallel

Nope.

The funny thing is that A is, with a few minor edits, pretty much straight of an article on fish. So the writer of the article also thought A to be correct.

That question is interesting, and the answer is no.

"experts have suggested that" in this context is not part of a command type sentence.

"experts have suggested that" in this context means something along the lines of "experts have indicated that" or "experts have offered for consideration the idea that".

So "that" does not have to be followed by the subjunctive. Rather "that" begins a noun clause, which is the object of "have suggested". The following is therefore fine as it is.

Experts have suggested that the farms are harming rather than helping.

Options other than C are wrong in couple of ways.

A. do more harm than help, by increasing the spread of diseases, parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems
speed of diseases compared with parasites

B. do more harm than they help, by increasing the spread of diseases, the spread of parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystem.

A & B -->by is not required here as "comma + ing" modifier already modifies the clause before comma.

C. harm rather than help, increasing the spread of diseases and that of parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems

D. are harming rather than helping, increase both the spread of diseases and parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems

E. are harming rather than helping, increase both the spread of diseases, parasites such as sea lice, and, astronomically, the level of pollution in wild ecosystem

D & E --> To whom are they harming or helping??

What's the final answer


Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

Selected correct answer on llism...
MartyMurray --just want to know apart from llism , can we delete D and E because of subjunctive mood(suggested....)..

Thanks Marty for pointing out ..hoping GMAC will test this concept at 750 level questions... :p :

C. harm rather than help, increasing the spread of diseases and that of parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems

For a discussion on C, the OA, how many factors are there in the modifying clause "increasing the spread of diseases and that of parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems"? In other words, is "the spread of diseases and that of parasites such as sea lice" one factor or two factors? If there are two factors, the modifying clause is a three-factor list and you don't require the 'and' between one and two. On the contrary, if both the factors are nested one into one, then you will not require the comma after lice since, in a two-factor list, a comma is not used. What is the OE, please?

The first two factors are nested into one.

I thought the comma before "and astronomically" to be optional. So I added put a comma there for clarity.

Will edit it out. The feedback is much appreciated.

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The final answer is C for me.
after ', ' 'by' is redundant .
B/w A and C (only parallel options) C is better than A

Although I agree with C being the best answer, but it changes the meaning conveyed by the original sentence. "harm rather than help" do not mean the same as "more harm than help".

The idea that the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question has to convey the meaning conveyed by the original version is a myth.

The correct answer is simply the answer that has no, or at least the fewest or least egregious, errors and issues.

Consider the following. If the original is flawed, it may convey a nonsensical meaning. Clearly then, there is no reason to expect that the correct answer will always convey the meaning conveyed by the original.

1) "do more harm than help" is not parallel here.
We say "do harm to" or "do good to", here harm and good are nouns.
But we never say " do help to" ( unless when you want to make an emphasis) ,
so the more parallel structure here should be " do more harm than good".

to sum up, when using the structure of "do more X than Y", both "do X" and "do Y'' should be able to work alone. So, A and B are out.

2) the meaning and structure:
According to outside experts, the farms do two things:
-----first) they do harm rather than help
-----second) they increase the spread of some bad things.
These two are definitely not unrelated: The second one tells us how they harm.
So the best way to convey this is to make"harm" the main verb and to make " increase......" a modifier, just as option C does.

Besides, one sentence can not have two main verbs without a conjunction
say: " X is doing..., do......."
this structure is not OK. Thus, D and E are out


not a native English speaker, so plz correct my analysis if it is wrong : )

While industry insiders insist that fish farming takes a burden off wild fish stocks, outside experts have suggested that actually the farms do more harm than help, by increasing the spread of diseases, of parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems.


A. do more harm than help, byincreasing the spread of diseases, of parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems -1. There should be a "and" in place of the comma 2. by is wrongly used

B. do more harm than theyhelp, byincreasing the spread of diseases,the spread of parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems -1. they is wrongly used 2. by is wrongly used 3. There should be a "and" in place of the comma

C. harm rather than help, increasing the spread of diseases and that of parasites such as sea lice and astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems -Correct

D. are harming rather than helping, increaseboth the spread of diseases and parasites such as sea lice, and astronomically increasingthe level of pollution in wild ecosystems -Not a parallel structure

E. are harming rather than helping, increase both the spread of diseases, parasites such as sea lice, and, astronomically, the level of pollution in wild ecosystems - 1. There should be a "and" in place of the comma

OA is between A and C

A:
1. 'do more harm than good' is a standard English phrase. 'do more harm than help' in the given context looks ok. Pl correct me.
2. by Verb1-ing.......and Verb2-ing is setting the parallelism
3. spreading of disease, (Is ellipsis applicable here?) of parasites such as XYZ.
4. 'spreading of disease, of parasites such as XYZ' : The example XYZ may be trouble creator. As disease seems to have been compared with parasites....a common example (XYZ) has been shared

C: Sets the tone perfectly.

I chose A because it seemed like a concise version of C.

Pl clarify

Thanks

"Do more harm than help" does not make sense.

"Do harm" is idiomatically correct. "Do good" is idiomatically correct. However, "do help" is not, at least not in this context.

Since the "do" in "do more harm than help" is understood to work with not only "harm" but also "help," we have "do help," which in this context is not idiomatically correct and does not make sense.


(A) is a trap choice. It seems to be logical, and sounds parallel, but is actually illogical.

Here's what the list in (A) is essentially:

by increasing x, y, and increasing z

Notice, "increasing" appears in the first and last elements of the list but not in the second. So, the list does not make sense, as it says, essentially, by increasing x, by y, and by increasing z, or

by increasing the spread of diseases, by of parasites such as sea lice, and by astronomically increasing the level of pollution in wild ecosystems

Am I correct in saying that in (A) and (B) ", by increasing " shouldn't be separated by a comma. The correct construction should be to attach "increasing..." onto the previous clause by itself, so "increasing" clearly modifies "harm"?

marty could you please clarify this and other reasons why (B) may be incorrect?