GMAT Ninja SC Ep 6: Parallelism & Meaning

Parallelism isn't simply about grammar on Executive Assessment Sentence Correction questions. The exams often add difficulty to parallelism questions by shifting the "stem" around to complicate the meaning of the sentence. If you've ever struggled to think clearly about meaning and parallelism on the EA, then this video is for you.

In the third video in our parallelism mini-series, Dana -- a GMAT Ninja tutor -- will show you how to effectively and reliably deal with meaning-based parallelism questions.

This is video #6 in our full-coverage series of Executive Assessment Sentence Correction lessons. For updates on upcoming videos, please subscribe!

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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:12 Basic Example 1 - The customer service...
03:53 Basic Example 2 - Faced with an estimated...
10:10 Question 1 - Scientists have recently...
17:44 Question 2 - Thelonius Monk, who was...

[constructofeternity]

Seems like a pretty high-end staff, Seth Rogan, Adam Sandler and now Jenna Fisher, moreover all of them are pretty good at teaching too.

[monwabisimyoli]

That "giant fungus" question is quite a mean one, I tell you. I still don't understand why answer choice A is the correct one as it seems that we are saying the modifier "spawned" and the present progressive verb "extending" [right now] are parallel. My non-native ear is battling to fully understand that. I went with answer choice B, thinking that the rest of the sentence modifies the giant fungus, such that the "giant fungus is an interwoven....and extends for more than...", irrespective of how "far the reach is" on the sentence term.

[sanyamangal]

In the giant fungus question, not clear why option "c-Extended" is wrong. Can extended not be a modifier here similar to spawned and then the parallelism between spawned and extended would make more sense?

[sim]

Thank you for the explanation, Dana! This was super duper helpful ^^ Answered many pricking questions. I feel far more comfortable with Parallelism now!

[artisticsaurabh]

Great video to revise critical concepts a day before the test

[ianmutch]

Thanks for the help! Your videos have helped so much for my learning already!
One quick Q,
My major takeaway is that in the underlying portion of the SC questions, if we have a word that stands out (e.g. both), then that is automatically where our stem begins for parallelism. Conversely, if (both, or any standout word like and) is not there, then we can change the stem to where we see fit, like between two nouns?
Hopefully that makes sense.

Thank you guys so much! :)

[FalconZ-TR]

In a giant fungus question, can (C) extended be “modifier” same as “spawned”?

[parvindernogi]

Saying “fungus extends for more than 30 km” seems right

[ashishsinha]

Thanks for the excellent presentation Dana. Though I got all the answers correct, I turned to your explanation to question 1 and 3 and your explanation was bang on.

[pankajmundhra]

2nd question bamboozled me!!
Brilliant stuff

[angadskate]

god bless you guys, seriously, thank you

[goptty]

just me or does SC seems too confusing and difficult to others as well

[thisissantilee]

May I ask a question? Why is it in C "extended" is acting as a verb while "extending" in A is acting as modifier? I thought -ed and -ing can act as a modifier.

[AnuragPratapSingh-bnvq]

Hey Team Ninja! Will this be customer service agent was friendly, polite and explaining everything thoroughly.

[sukhrobbekjamolov]

Thank you very much, Dana. it was very helpful

[rahulbasu]

A very helpful session indeed. Thanks for sharing your knowledge..

[avishekkumar]

Can u explain more on 2nd question - why for maintenance and to subsidize cant be parallel as logic/meaning wise it make sense if the stem ends at allocated/. for maintenance and allocated to subsidize...

[lolritz]

thank you for this! the examples were quite difficult

[adrianpranata]

In option C of the last question, why is "produced" not considered to be a verb?

[c.saiganesh]

@GMATNinjaTutoring
Why cant we split the sentence right before spawned as stem
And and use spawned and extended as parallels ?