SC: Possible long-term consequences of the “greenhouse

[cesar.rodriguez.blanco]

What is wrong with answers B and C?
OA is E

Possible long-term consequences of the "greenhouse effect," the gradual warming of the Earth’s climate, may include melting the polar ice caps and a rising sea level.
A. may include melting the polar ice caps and a rising sea level
B. may include the melting of polar ice caps and the rising sea level
C. may include polar ice caps that are melting and sea levels that are rising
D. include melting the polar ice caps and sea levels that are rising
E. include melting of the polar ice caps and a rise in sea level

[sunny.jain]

possible is already mention in the sentence, you dont need 'may'..its redundant.

so A,B and C are out.

E maintain parallelism as well.

[chuckberry007]

I thought B sounds parallel too. "The melting of polar ice caps and the rising sea level"..

E: How does "melting of the polar ice caps and a rise in sea level" parallel?

Instructor can share some thoughts?

[sunny.jain]

B is out because MAY is redundant.

B doesn't maintain parallelism.


the melting of polar ice caps and the rising sea level

Melting :- Gerund
Rising : Adjective.

E is parallel because of
melting of PIC :- Prepositional phrase
the rise in sea level :- Prepositional phrase.

[RonPurewal]

B is out because MAY is redundant.

B doesn't maintain parallelism.


the melting of polar ice caps and the rising sea level

Melting :- Gerund
Rising : Adjective.

E is parallel because of
melting of PIC :- Prepositional phrase
the rise in sea level :- Prepositional phrase.

perfect.

[rahularya7]

B is out because MAY is redundant.

B doesn't maintain parallelism.


the melting of polar ice caps and the rising sea level

Melting :- Gerund
Rising : Adjective.

E is parallel because of
melting of PIC :- Prepositional phrase
the rise in sea level :- Prepositional phrase.

I dont understand. I agree B, is wrong because of redundancy issues but it is parallel. Plz correct me if i am wrong.
The Complex Gerund Forms can be made parallel to perfect nouns.
"the melting of polar ice caps"----->>>> Complex Gerund
"the rising sea level"------>>> A perfect noun (sea level) modified by rising (adjective)

Also can you please explain in E, how do we differentiate between Prepositional phrases and Gerunds/Nouns, because on the first go i thought
"melting of the polar ice caps"---->>>> Simple Gerund
"a rise in sea level"------>>>>>> A noun
and since the above 2 cannot be parallel, I deemed E as wrong

[RonPurewal]

B is out because MAY is redundant.

B doesn't maintain parallelism.


the melting of polar ice caps and the rising sea level

Melting :- Gerund
Rising : Adjective.

E is parallel because of
melting of PIC :- Prepositional phrase
the rise in sea level :- Prepositional phrase.

I dont understand. I agree B, is wrong because of redundancy issues but it is parallel. Plz correct me if i am wrong.
The Complex Gerund Forms can be made parallel to perfect nouns.
"the melting of polar ice caps"----->>>> Complex Gerund
"the rising sea level"------>>> A perfect noun (sea level) modified by rising (adjective)

Also can you please explain in E, how do we differentiate between Prepositional phrases and Gerunds/Nouns, because on the first go i thought
"melting of the polar ice caps"---->>>> Simple Gerund
"a rise in sea level"------>>>>>> A noun
and since the above 2 cannot be parallel, I deemed E as wrong

this whole idea of a "complex gerund" is new to me; i'm not familiar with that term. (i don't know very many grammatical terms; moreover, such terms are largely unimportant in solving SC problems.) if it's in our strategy guide, please give me a page reference so i can look at it.

in general, you should just pick the best parallelism from among the available choices.
the only non-redundant choices are (d) and (e). between those two, choice (e) is clearly more parallel -- both structures are "noun + prep + other noun".

[messi10]

Hi Ron,

Chapter 11, SC guide 4th edition, pg 214-216 discuss the issue of gerunds and action nouns.

According to the book, complex gerunds and action nouns can be parallel and in this question:

melting of polar caps is a Complex Gerund
rise in sea levels is an Action Noun

I have a question on redundancy. Is redundancy considered a grammatical error or a concision error? Iis it OK to cross out answer based on redundancy alone or should we look for other grammatical errors first?

Thanks

Sunil

[RonPurewal]

I have a question on redundancy. Is redundancy considered a grammatical error or a concision error?

this distinction is irrelevant; it's an error. if an answer choice contains an error, it's wrong.

Is it OK to cross out answer based on redundancy alone or should we look for other grammatical errors first?

if you are confident that you found the redundancy error -- meaning, ideally, you've found another answer choice without the redundant construction -- then you should eliminate it.

[imperial.franco]

B is out because MAY is redundant.

B doesn't maintain parallelism.


the melting of polar ice caps and the rising sea level

Melting :- Gerund
Rising : Adjective.

E is parallel because of
melting of PIC :- Prepositional phrase
the rise in sea level :- Prepositional phrase.

I dont understand. I agree B, is wrong because of redundancy issues but it is parallel. Plz correct me if i am wrong.
The Complex Gerund Forms can be made parallel to perfect nouns.
"the melting of polar ice caps"----->>>> Complex Gerund
"the rising sea level"------>>> A perfect noun (sea level) modified by rising (adjective)

Also can you please explain in E, how do we differentiate between Prepositional phrases and Gerunds/Nouns, because on the first go i thought
"melting of the polar ice caps"---->>>> Simple Gerund
"a rise in sea level"------>>>>>> A noun
and since the above 2 cannot be parallel, I deemed E as wrong

Actually, "melting of the polar ice caps" is a complex gerund, while "a rise in sea level" is an action noun. Hence, this construction is parallel according to the MGMAT SC guide. (Moreover, your earlier claim that complex gerunds and concrete nouns can be made parallel is untrue. The SC guide states that only complex gerunds and action nouns can be mixed.)

I've come up with a good litmus test, in light of the MGMAT SC guide, to determine whether an -ing noun is a simple gerund or a complex gerund:

Since simple gerunds are "nouns on the outside, verbs on the inside," you could simply construct a sentence with a verb phrase along with the "-ing" word/phrase in question and see whether it makes sense as a verb phrase.

Example:

"melting the polar ice caps" Complex or Simple?
Radiation is melting the polar ice caps. functions as a verb phrase, so simple. (why? noun-verb phrase)

"the melting of polar ice caps" Complex or Simple?
Radiation is the melting of polar ice caps. doesn't function as a verb phrase, so complex. (why? noun-verb-noun)

"melting of polar ice caps" Complex or Simple?
Radiation is melting of the polar ice caps. doesn't function as a verb phrase, so complex. (why? noun-verb-noun)

[RonPurewal]

this whole "complex"/"simple" thing is completely unnecessary.

out of curiosity, i searched the internet for it, and found zero sources that weren't MGMAT (and/or pointed back to MGMAT).
so, amusingly enough, it appears that we may have randomly invented this term in some early edition of a strategy guide.

the point is this:
parallelism is a "beauty contest".
keep good matches. throw out bad ones.

...and that's it.

you will NEVER need to make such nit-picky distinctions.

[RonPurewal]

The SC guide states that only complex gerunds and action nouns can be mixed.

again, my understanding of this terminology is sketchy at best. however, this seems to indicate that one shouldn't put "the __ing of something" in parallel with an action noun.

if that's what this sentence actually means, then it's totally wrong (just look at problem 64 in OG 13th) and needs to be removed from the guide.

[RonPurewal]

the following is the only analysis necessary for parallelism:

A/
no match whatsoever
(these are like "writing a book" || "a written book")
... eliminate

B/
if we ignore modifiers, the core nouns are
"the melting" || "the sea level"
no match.

C/
perfect match.

D/
no match. same problem as (a).

E/
perfect match.


that's it. so, only C and E survive the parallelism check.

[RonPurewal]

nb, (c) can be eliminated on at least two other grounds:

• it's nonsense. ice caps and sea levels are physical objects; they're not "consequences" of anything. (the changes in these things are the "consequences" here.)

• the tense of "is/are __ing" describes things that are happening at present. this tense is thus inappropriate for the discussion of potential future consequences.

[LaraZ595]

Hi Ron,

When would we add "the" in front of "melting of the polar ice cap" or do we add it at all?

For me "the melting of the polar ice cap" would parallel with "the rising of sea level"…is this right or too redundant?

Thanks.