Discussion of greenhouse effects have usually .....

[RonPurewal]

that's not true -- there's no necessary relationship between "usually" and "the".

...but the important thing is the other thing that you wrote ("it's not an issue").

[ZoeZ42]

Dear instructors,

Would you please help to confirm :
1) choice B
one reason of eliminating B is that the word "focus" should be followed by preposition "on" ? I eliminated B based on this reason, please help to confirm.

2) choice E
"whether Earth would grow warmmer" is a clause, "the extent that is" is a noun phrase.
so these two events are not paralleled.
Am i right?

3) parallelism
except WH- phrase paralle, can noun be paralleled to noun phrase ?
Example: leaf cutters (noun )and most other ants in having nests (Noun phrase) ?
please help to clarify

thanks a lot
have a nice day
>_~

[RonPurewal]

1) choice B
one reason of eliminating B is that the word "focus" should be followed by preposition "on" ? I eliminated B based on this reason, please help to confirm.

you haven't read this whole thread.

please read the whole thread.

discussion-of-greenhouse-effects-have-usually-t32135.html#p115546

[RonPurewal]

2) choice E
"whether Earth would grow warmmer" is a clause, "the extent that is" is a noun phrase.
so these two events are not paralleled.
Am i right?

3) parallelism
except WH- phrase paralle, can noun be paralleled to noun phrase ?
Example: leaf cutters (noun )and most other ants in having nests (Noun phrase) ?
please help to clarify

this ^^ is the wrong way to judge parallel structures. you're making this far more difficult than it needs to be.

PARALLELISM is a RELATIVE judgment!

if you see ANOTHER ANSWER CHOICE with CLEARLY BETTER parallelism... then, eliminate the one(s) with WORSE parallelism.

...that's it.

no complicated "rules" to memorize.

[AvinashR698]

Hi Ron,

I could understand that "whether Earth would get warmer" parallel to "what extent". My concern is to what extent parallel to whether. Addition of to in front of what.

Is it added for ellipsis to remove ambiguity.

Regards
Avinash

[Chelsey Cooley]

Hi Ron,

I could understand that "whether Earth would get warmer" parallel to "what extent". My concern is to what extent parallel to whether. Addition of to in front of what.

Is it added for ellipsis to remove ambiguity.

Regards
Avinash

'Whether' and 'to what extent' are the same grammatically, so they're parallel. One quick way to check this is that they can both go in the exact same place in a sentence:

I don't know whether she studied for the GMAT.
I don't know to what extent she studied for the GMAT.

You're probably thinking of a rule that applies specifically to verbs when it comes to parallelism. A verb with 'to' in front of it is called an 'infinitive'. You can't use an infinitive in the same place as a regular verb; they aren't the same thing.

I want to eat a pizza. (good)
I want ate a pizza. (bad)
I want will eat a pizza. (bad)

So, an infinitive isn't parallel with a regular verb. That's why you've learned to watch out for 'to' in parallelism. But, because 'whether' and 'to what extent' aren't verbs, you aren't really worried about that rule here. They can be parallel.

[RAHULS852]

also, on an unrelated note, you can quickly eliminate A and B because of 'a focus' (singular), which is an inappropriate label for TWO topics of discussion.

Hi Sage/ Manhattan Expert,

I am not able to understand the point about "focus" in A & B.

Regards,
Rahul Singh

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Take the example sentence: 'We decided that an important priority was improving conditions and increasing revenue.' Hopefully this sounds kind of strange to you. If we write 'an important priority' then we're referring to just one thing. So the sentence would be more logically written as 'We decided that important priorities were improving conditions and increasing revenue.'

A similar illogical thing is going on in answers A and B: they refer to a single focus, but mention two separate concerns.

[RAHULS852]

Thanks Sage for your clarification.

Can you give me few more examples about this construction.

A gym exercise was improving health and increasing strength.

Few gym exercises were improving health and increasing strength.

I tried to make few sentences. Kindly review.

Regards,
Rahul Singh

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

A gym exercise was improving health and increasing strength.

Few gym exercises were improving health and increasing strength.

Good job on the singular / plural aspect here. However, your examples don't make sense to me: a gym exercise can't "be" improving health, a gym exercise can "be for" or simply "improve" health. I would rewrite these as follows:
A gym exercise was for improving health and increasing strength.
Several gym exercises were for improving health and increasing strength.

[RAHULS852]

Yeah now these examples make more sense to me. Sometimes I can't think as you do .
I got your point about singular / plural. Thanks !

Regards,
Rahul Singh

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You're welcome.