{"id":5394,"date":"2016-02-15t09:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-15t17:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2018-07-21t07:33:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-21t14:33:03","slug":"parallel-structure-sat-grammar-fundamentals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/parallel-structure-sat-grammar-fundamentals\/","title":{"rendered":"parallel structure \u2014 sat grammar fundamentals"},"content":{"rendered":"
parallelism is important on the sat. it will help you employ commas more efficiently and understand how sentences are constructed, so that you\u2019ll know why something that might sound right is actually wrong (it violates the rules of parallelism).<\/p>\n
so here are the three things you have to keep in mind with parallelism:<\/p>\n
parts of speech include adjective, noun, verb, etc. if i list<\/strong> several things, those things should be in the same form, i.e. they should share the same parts of speech. for instance, in the sentence below the list is made up of three things: read magazines, watch television, and play video games.<\/p>\n incorrect:<\/u> george likes to read magazines, watch television, and he plays video games.<\/em><\/p>\n incorrect:<\/u> george likes to read magazines, watch television, and plays video games. <\/em><\/p>\n correct:<\/u> george likes to read magazines, watch television, and play video games <\/em><\/p>\n in the first two examples, we have two verbs that are parallel (\u201cread\u201d and \u201cwatch\u201d). what i mean by parallel is they have the same form: they are not \u201creads\u201d and \u201cwatch\u201d or \u201cread\u201d and \u201cwatches\u201d or \u201cwatching\u201d.<\/p>\n not that we couldn\u2019t use some other form of the verb. but the three parts that make up the list must be in the same form.<\/p>\n correct<\/em>:<\/span> reading magazines, watching television, and playing video games are three things he likes to do during his free time.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n there is a special type of conjunction called the correlative conjunction. you don\u2019t really have to know the name, but you have to know the function. more specifically, you have to remember when you see these conjunctions to think \u201cparallelism\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n not only a<\/u> but also b<\/u> what in tarnation does a and b mean? \u201ca\u201d stands for a word or phrase and \u201cb\u201d stands for a word or phrase. these words or phrases should be parallel. in other words, a and b should be parallel.<\/p>\n not only is he funny<\/u>, but he is also clever<\/u>. <\/em><\/p>\n in this case a and b are adjectives. as in the original example,<\/p>\n incorrect<\/u>: not only has he squandered<\/strong> an important opportunity, but he is also upsetting<\/strong> many people close to him. <\/em><\/p>\n correct:<\/u> not only has he squandered<\/strong> an important opportunity, but he has also upset <\/strong>many people close to him.<\/em><\/p>\n squandered is in the simple past tense, therefore, we need the simple past tense of upsetting, which is upset. notice in the incorrect example, squandered does not match upsetting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n on more advanced parallelism questions, it won\u2019t just be two words that have to be parallel but entire phrases. other times a question is difficult because the verbs are buried in a morass of words, as the example below shows.<\/p>\n playing video games, unlike watching television, is not a passive activity, because doing so requires that the video game player react to what\u2019s happening onscreen, strategizes<\/u> to overcome obstacles, and that she persevere<\/u> to advance through the most difficult stages of the game. <\/em><\/p>\n 1) <\/em><\/p>\n 2) <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n the video game player has to do three things: react, strategize, and persevere. the verb form is something called the subjunctive, which often pops up in words that indicated a command, request, or a requirement. you don\u2019t actually have to know this. but you do have to notice that it does not say, \u201cthe video game player reacts<\/strong>\u201d; a verb usually takes an \u2018s\u2019 the end when it refers to a third person subject (\u201che walks\u201d, \u201cshe dances\u201d, etc.).<\/p>\n here though it is \u201creact\u201d, not \u201creacts\u201d (again, that\u2019s because we have the verb \u201crequire that\u201d, which removes the \u2013s from the end of a verb referring to the third person. therefore, the other two verbs must both be in this form, giving us \u201cstrategize\u201d and \u201cpersevere\u201d. therefore, the answer to both 1) and 2) is d).<\/p>\nparallelism and correlative conjunctions on the sat<\/h2>\n
correlative conjunctions:<\/h2>\n
\nboth a<\/u> and b<\/u>
\neither a<\/u> or b<\/u>
\nneither a<\/u> nor b<\/u><\/p>\nsat-level <\/u><\/h4>\n
\u00a0 sat-level (hard)<\/h4>\n
\n\ta) no change<\/em>
\n\tb) that she strategizes<\/em>
\n\tc) that she strategize<\/em>
\n\td) strategize <\/em>\n<\/ol>\n\n\ta) no change<\/em>
\n\tb) she persevere<\/em>
\n\tc) she perseveres<\/em>
\n\td) persevere <\/em>\n<\/ol>\nanswers and explanation:<\/h4>\n