{"id":2640,"date":"2012-09-04T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/?p=2640"},"modified":"2020-01-15T10:50:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T18:50:29","slug":"gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/","title":{"rendered":"GMAT Grammar Rules: Parallelism and Verb Tenses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction: parallelism<\/h2>\n

Parallelism is one of the GMAT’s favorite grammatical structures.\u00a0 Probably almost half of all SC questions involve parallelism of some kind.\u00a0 Of course, one can put nouns or adjectives into parallel, but what’s the fun of that? \u00a0Parallelism only gets interesting when you put entire verbs or verb phrases (e.g. infinitive phrases<\/a>, participial phrases<\/a>) into parallel.
\nOf course two items in parallel must be the same grammatical form: both regular verb forms, or both participles, or both infinitive.\u00a0 But the question arises — if they are regular verbs, or if they are participles, must the two items in parallel match in tense?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Parallel verbs and tense<\/h2>\n

Can regular verbs in parallel have different tenses?\u00a0 The OG provides a resounding “YES” to this question.\u00a0 Not one, but two different SC questions in the OG13, SC#10 and SC #91 have correct answers in which the parallel verbs have different tenses.\u00a0 Here are other examples of such a sentences:<\/p>\n

1) China had been united<\/span><\/strong> under the Qin<\/a> (221 \u2013 206 BCE) and Han<\/a> (206 BD \u2013 AD 220) before Buddhism was introduced, and it was united<\/span><\/strong> again in the Tang<\/a> (618 \u2013 907) Dynasty, a time now regarded as the “golden age” of Chinese Buddhism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) Ancient Celtic legend holds that the mythical figure of Arthur<\/a> was<\/span><\/strong> at one time king of all of England and, in some future time of need, will arise<\/span><\/strong> as king again.<\/p>\n

3) The baseball team gave up<\/span><\/strong> seven unearned runs in the second inning of today’s game, and still are losing<\/span><\/strong> in the seventh inning.<\/p>\n

In the first sentence, we have a past perfect<\/strong><\/a> verb parallel with a simple past<\/strong> verb.\u00a0 In the second sentence, we have a simple past<\/strong> verb parallel with a simple future<\/strong> verb.\u00a0 In the third sentence, we have a simple past<\/strong> verb parallel with a present progressive<\/strong><\/a> verb.\u00a0 The first two concern the history of religious ideas, and the third strongly resembles a team<\/a> for which the author of this article roots — you know, I just would rather not talk about it! \u00a0\ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Parallel participles and tense<\/h2>\n

Can the participles of two participial phrases in parallel be different tenses?\u00a0 Here, we are not on such solid ground.\u00a0 The OG13 affords no examples for or against, nor am I familiar with any official test material that explores this construction.\u00a0 The most I can say is: all authorities on grammar would call this construction perfectly acceptable, so there is no reason it couldn’t appear at some point in the future on GMAT SC.\u00a0 Here are a couple completely correct examples.<\/p>\n

5) Ralph Nader<\/a>, having run<\/strong> for US President six times and declining<\/strong> to run again in 2012, explained his reasons during a symposium at the university.<\/p>\n

6) The Atlantic Ocean, formed<\/strong> when Europe split away from America 130 million years ago and still expanding<\/strong> today, will be Earth’s largest ocean at some point in the distant future.<\/p>\n

Sentence #5 uses a somewhat unusual participle tense, a perfect participle<\/em>, “having run” in parallel with a present participle; perfect participle are rare on the GMAT, but they do appear.\u00a0 Sentence #6 uses a past participle in parallel with a present participle.\u00a0 Again, those are grammatically 100% correct, and there’s no reason they couldn’t appear on GMAT SC, although, again, we have not seen any examples of this construction on the GMAT.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction: parallelism Parallelism is one of the GMAT’s favorite grammatical structures.\u00a0 Probably almost half of all SC questions involve parallelism of some kind.\u00a0 Of course, one can put nouns or adjectives into parallel, but what’s the fun of that? \u00a0Parallelism only gets interesting when you put entire verbs or verb phrases (e.g. infinitive phrases, participial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13209],"class_list":["post-2640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGMAT Grammar Rules: Parallelism and Verb Tenses - Magoosh Blog \u2014 GMAT\u00ae Exam<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GMAT Grammar Rules: Parallelism and Verb Tenses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Introduction: parallelism Parallelism is one of the GMAT’s favorite grammatical structures.\u00a0 Probably almost half of all SC questions involve parallelism of some kind.\u00a0 Of course, one can put nouns or adjectives into parallel, but what’s the fun of that? \u00a0Parallelism only gets interesting when you put entire verbs or verb phrases (e.g. infinitive phrases, participial […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Magoosh Blog \u2014 GMAT\u00ae Exam\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshGMAT\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-09-04T16:00:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-01-15T18:50:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike M\u1d9cGarry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@MagooshGMAT\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MagooshGMAT\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mike M\u1d9cGarry\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mike M\u1d9cGarry\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#\/schema\/person\/320346c205075513344435baf9b0521b\"},\"headline\":\"GMAT Grammar Rules: Parallelism and Verb Tenses\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-09-04T16:00:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/\"},\"wordCount\":556,\"commentCount\":35,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"GMAT Grammar\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/\",\"name\":\"GMAT Grammar Rules: Parallelism and Verb Tenses - Magoosh Blog \u2014 GMAT\u00ae Exam\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-09-04T16:00:56+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-grammar-rules-parallelism-and-verb-tenses\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"GMAT Grammar Rules: Parallelism and Verb Tenses\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/\",\"name\":\"Magoosh Blog \u2014 GMAT\u00ae Exam\",\"description\":\"Everything you need to know about the GMAT\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Magoosh\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/files\/2019\/04\/Magoosh-logo-purple-60h.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/files\/2019\/04\/Magoosh-logo-purple-60h.png\",\"width\":265,\"height\":60,\"caption\":\"Magoosh\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshGMAT\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MagooshGMAT\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#\/schema\/person\/320346c205075513344435baf9b0521b\",\"name\":\"Mike M\u1d9cGarry\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/15a1e36ef1c2c3940179212433de141a\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b06de81592cd77bb46aa560cc59aee179cba4d042835c3529221ea1b344cce0?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b06de81592cd77bb46aa560cc59aee179cba4d042835c3529221ea1b344cce0?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mike M\u1d9cGarry\"},\"description\":\"Mike holds an A.B. in Physics (graduating magna cum laude) and an M.T.S. in Religions of the World, both from Harvard. 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Beyond standardized testing, Mike has over 20 years of both private and public high school teaching experience specializing in math and physics. In his free time, Mike likes smashing foosballs into orbit, and despite having no obvious cranial deficiency, he insists on rooting for the NY Mets. Learn more about the GMAT through Mike's Youtube video explanations.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/MagooshGMATChannel\/featured"],"award":["Magna cum laude from Harvard"],"knowsAbout":["GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/author\/mikemcgarry\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13209,"user_id":26,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mikemcgarry","display_name":"Mike M\u1d9cGarry","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b06de81592cd77bb46aa560cc59aee179cba4d042835c3529221ea1b344cce0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"M\u1d9cGarry","first_name":"Mike","description":"Mike served as a GMAT Expert at Magoosh, helping create hundreds of lesson videos and practice questions to help guide GMAT students to success. He was also featured as \"member of the month\" for over two years at <a href=\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/mike-mcgarrys-gmat-experience\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GMAT Club<\/a>. Mike holds an A.B. in Physics (graduating <em>magna cum laude<\/em>) and an M.T.S. in Religions of the World, both from Harvard. Beyond standardized testing, Mike has over 20 years of both private and public high school teaching experience specializing in math and physics. In his free time, Mike likes smashing foosballs into orbit, and despite having no obvious cranial deficiency, he insists on rooting for the NY Mets. Learn more about the GMAT through Mike's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/MagooshGMATChannel\/featured\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Youtube <\/a>video explanations and resources like <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/whats-a-good-gmat-score\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What is a Good GMAT Score?<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-diagnostic-test\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GMAT Diagnostic Test<\/a>."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2640"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}