GMAT Ninja SC Ep 4: Special Parallelism Triggers

[@bhuveshgupta7801]

I just wanted to thank you for creating this comprehensive series. I have been struggling with SC for quite some time but now it is clear to me. These videos helped me achieved something that I was struggling to for months.

[@kshitijjain2979]

Can't wait for the whole series to be out! Giving my GMAT in july 2022 and nothing has helped me more on SC than GMAT Ninja. Thank you and I hope for more videos and questions soon!!! :D

[@tbt73]

It used used to take me some time to eliminate parallelism errors. But this technique really helps to work faster. Amazing video! Thanks.

[@jacksonjose8438]

When did Pam start teaching GMAT?

[@ashishsinha9035]

Thanks Dana, GMAT Ninja and of course, Mr. Charles. I was able to solve both the questions correctly.

[@devadarshini00]

YES! THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO!

[@himanshusharma601]

Didn't knew Amy Adams was a Gmat teacher 😂. Great series, thank you Gmat Ninja team.

[@FightforJustice15]

Thank you, ma'am. It was a wonderful learning experience!

[@GMATSTA]

Great video. For the last question, I expected option C to say "...but also forced THOSE companies to offer competitive prices." Could these and those be used interchangeably here? Can you explain why it's these and not those?

[@coolasme97]

In question 2, option A , should we consider "customers from other phone companies" as a compound noun since the verb 'captured' is referring to the 'customers from other phone companies' and then if we look at it, 'them' refers to the compound noun and it doesn't make sense that the 'customers from other phone companies' were forced to offer competitive prices?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Dana discusses this issue starting at about 18:10 in the video. Check that out and let us know if you have any further questions. I hope that helps!

[@coolasme97]

​@@GMATNinjaTutoring She relates it to ambiguity. I understood that. I wanted to know if my way of looking at "customers from other phone companies" as a compound noun and then eliminating the option is incorrect or not? Thank you.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Sorry, @@coolasme97, thank you for clarifying the question. I don't see any reason why the 'them' can't refer to the 'other phone companies' in (A). You're absolutely right that the new company 'captured' the customers in the compound noun 'customers from other phone companies'. However, the context of the second part of the final part of the sentence makes it clear that it's other phone companies that are forced to offer competitive prices. The 'them' can refer to these phone companies, so I don't see the 'them' in (A) being a big enough problem to definitely eliminate that answer choice outright and in isolation. What we can say is that if we're being strictly grammatical and ignoring the context, the 'them' could refer to the customers or it could refer to companies. It's this ambiguity that means (C) is a better answer choice than (A). I hope that helps!

[@coolasme97]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Got it. Thanks again!

[@mckennasmoot8693]

I have a question about your first example. Step 1 was to notice the parallel pair. Step 2 was to label the two words following the parallel pair as adjective and a verb. Step 3 was to read each one of the pairs individually with the stem. The question is if the second step is necessary? Step 3 is something that I am capable of understanding and step 2 I am not so sure of. I am willing to put in more time to learning the rules with adj, verbs, and so forth if you feel like it will cost me points.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Apologies for our slow response! Honestly, grammar jargon isn't necessary for sentence correction. It's really helpful for most test-takers to label parts of speech as verbs or adjectives or whatever, but if you can intuitively understand the function of the words, you don't really need labels for them. So could you skip step 2? If you can draw the right conclusion when you jump straight from step 1 to step 3, go for it. Not everybody can do that, which is why we teach parallelism the way that we do. But if it works for you, feel free to skip a step. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

[@lolritz9880]

love the headphones!

[@adityabajaj9001]

In Q.1 Option E, we also have another parallelism trigger "and were fashioned" what is that parallel to? ...date from the time?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Yes, you're right! "And" is followed by the verb "were," which is parallel to the verb "date." I hope that helps a bit!

[@javierromera1997]

Thank you! Really useful

[@TheUniqueaim]

Thank you. Your video was super helpful.

[@AsifSarker-n5c]

Really helpfull

[@saketkandoi3355]

Here in Q2 - option C, Replacement for these will be other phone companies. If i am replacing these as other phone companies then companies is repeating. and that's why I thought of eliminating it.

[@finnbalor1090]

Thak you for your time

[@Harshit-Sharma08]

In the first example, "Many GMAT questions are both annoying and twist you around in circles", isn't the word "annoying" acting as a noun rather than an adjective, Dana?

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

"Annoying" is an adjective here -- a predicate adjective, if you want some fancy grammar jargon. (For more, check out this article if you love the jargon: www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/predicate-adjectives/) Really, though, you don't have to get too in the weeds with grammar terminology for GMAT sentence correction. The purpose of the word "annoying" is to describe the noun "questions," so it definitely can't be parallel to the verb "twist." That's enough to eliminate something like this on the GMAT. I hope that helps!

[@andyh3909]

Hi I want to ask, in A how can them be ambiguous? if we switch them with customers, the sentence becomes illogical. The customers can't offer competitive price

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

You're right that "companies" is the logical noun for "them" to refer to. However, the structure of the sentence actually points us toward "customers" as the antecedent. The first parallel leg in (A) is primarily talking about customers, and only mentions companies as a side note: "the new telecommunications company has not only captured CUSTOMERS (from other phone companies)..." This leads the reader to expect the second leg to also talk about customers: "the new telecommunications company has ... also forced THE CUSTOMERS..." That clearly doesn't make sense! More importantly, "them" could refer to a couple of different nouns, while "these companies" is crystal clear. Because that's the only difference between (A) and (C), (C) is the winner.

[@srilanka739]

Is question 2 an official question? - little unfair as A is also correct...cant say its wrong because of the ambiguity of 'them' no?

[@mohitprabhat2449]

Only 2 Qs Charles!! We want more plss 😃

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Haha, don't worry, Mohit! Two more parallelism videos are coming very, very soon. 😃 - Charles

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

@@YashTambi Yup, that's correct -- we'll release new ones every Friday until we've covered everything you need for SC. There are about 18 videos in the SC series, give or take. So we won't finish this series by June, but we have a bunch of other SC and verbal videos here: www.gmatninja.com/videos/gmat/verbal.

[@sriram2791]

Thanks for the great video, as always. I recently started following GMAT Ninja's videos and notice a remarkable shift in the way I'm approaching SCs. With regards to Question 2. I marked the answer as Option A. I kind of raced thru and convinced myself that the "them" pronoun is referring the "other phone companies", because "customers" doesn't necessarily make logical sense. So from a "meaning" perspective we have only one option the pronoun could refer to (is what I told myself) But on reviewing Dana's explanation, my take away is that "these companies" is an explicit noun referring to the "other companies" and really can mean only one thing. So this is clearer than the choice A, since A has the pronoun ambiguity. One doubt that I had was w.r.t "these" vs "those" vs even a simple "the". 1. but also forced these companies - I thought "these companies" may also include our new company along with other companies, and hence thought it might be inappropriate 2. but also forced those companies - I thought this would've been appropriate since it clearly refers to "other companies" 3. but also forced the companies - this also seems a reasonable thing to say Would the GMAT ever give a answer choice split b/w 1 vs 2. And if so, is 2 still better over 1? It is possible I'm really overthinking here. Thanks.

[@GMATNinjaTutoring]

Thank you for the kind words, Sriram! And apologies for our slow response. When it comes to sentence correction questions, inventing your own options is usually not a great use of your time -- there are just too many moving pieces to say how the test might treat a hypothetical answer choice. So, while there is a slight difference in meaning between "these," "those," and "the," we don't need to think through that difference to answer this question. If you do have such a subtle meaning issue on a different question, then it would be best to start with lower-hanging fruit: if there's a nice subject-verb agreement or parallelism issue, for example, look at that first. Then, if the ONLY difference left is the small meaning thing, then your analysis above is on the right track. Luckily, you don't even have to go that far on this question -- "these companies" isn't definitively wrong, and it eliminates the ambiguity issue with "them." I hope that helps!

[@sriram2791]

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Thanks for clarifying. And again, great job with putting out such effective content!

[@rahuldhakne8577]

What is the first thing you should look for in SC? Considering we're done with pronouns in previous episodes, whats the first thing we should be looking for, Pronouns or Parallelism?

[@stutipuri7430]

Informative video, but Dana could have spoken a little slower :)