Incredibly ridiculous SC

[Stockmoose16]

Can an expert please explain the following question? The answer does not make any sense to me:

[question deleted by moderators]

OA is C, which sounds absolutely horrendous to me. What's wrong with A? It sounds much more eloquent.

[SAN]

Me also agree with A.

If I am worng then I need to visit the Ear specialist. Haaa

[esledge]

Please cite the source (author) of this problem. We cannot reply until then. If no source is cited, we will have to delete the question just to be sure we are not violating someone else's copyright. Thanks!

Please also make sure to read and follow the forum guidelines before posting. The subject heading should be the first 5-8 words of the problem.

[VP]

My friend it is idiomatic and parallel usage to use like: "to do A is to do B" / "Doing A is Doing B".

So in the question it is clear from the above usage pattern that:

A) "To speak"... vs "instilling" (not parallel)
B) same error as above
C) "To speak"...vs "To instill" (parallel) - keep it
D) "Speaking"..."To instill" (not parallel)
E) "Speaking"...."instilling" (parallel) - keep it

So now out of C and E, C looks better to me as E sounds awkward to me because of the usage of participle "speaking and instilling". Infinitive will serve the basic intent of the sentence and will keep the meaning intact.
Hope this helps.

thanks !
~VP

[san]

A) To speak habitually of the "truly needy" is gradually instilling the notion - perfect



(B) To speak habitually of the "truly needy" is instilling the notion gradually - adverb gradually modifying noun notion - worng
(C) To speak habitually of the "truly needy" is gradually to instill the notion - wrong

wording should be - is to instill precisely -
eg -
he is to ask precisely not is precisely to ask.


VP any comments


(D) Speaking habitually of the "truly needy" is to instill the gradual notion - habitually modifying noun
(E) Speaking habitually of the "truly needy" is instilling the gradual notion - same error as d

[VP]

San, I do agree with you on your example but here in this question the adverb gradually is needed to modify the instill. So we can't place gradually anywhere else in the sentence rather than just before the "instilling" or "to instill". But due to the parallelism, "instilling" will be be a perfect fit for this sentence, so we need to use "to instill" and "gradually" properly modifies "to instill".

One way to modify option C would be to re-write it as:

To speak habitually of the "truly needy" is to gradually instill the notion - here gradually is modifying the "instill" but remember GMAT avoids the SPLIT INFINITIVES. So, we have no other best option left but C.

Hope this helps.

thanks !

~VP

[esledge]

Sorry, but I had to delete the original question as no source was cited. Great discussion, though! If someone determines the author/source of this one, feel free to repost with the citation.