Although energy prices have tripled in the United States

[RonPurewal]

Also can we eliminate C because of the comma before "nor" as the things that follow ",nor " should be a clause? - Is my reasoning correct here?

no.

... and you shouldn't be worrying about that in the first place.
read here:
post59386.html#p59386

[aps_asks]

Hi Instructors ,

I approached this problem in the following way :
1) Eliminated C ) as it is using having.
2) Indicates that is an idiom ...so Choices A ) and B ) are out.
3) there is lack of parallelism in D ) for the parallel marker AND
4) There is perfect parallelism in E ) for the parallel marker OR

[tim]

actually, all of your eliminations have some element of truth but are all flawed in some way:

1) the word "having" is not always wrong, but it is in this case. make sure you know why..

2) you should not get rid of answer choices because other choices have idioms you like. get rid of them because they are wrong on their own. the problem is that if you indicate few people that means you're pointing them out..

3) D is 100% parallel; its parallelism just creates an absurd meaning..

4) don't ever pick an answer choice because it gets something right. pick it because all the others are wrong..

[jp.jprasanna]

Hi - I have one question regarding the parallelism in option D.

D. that few people have significantly reduced the amount of driving they do and are not making

1. Have reduced is not parallel to are not making right?
2. Does the helping verb "have" apply to the 2nd part?

i.e. - have significantly reduced and (have) are not making?

So if the 2nd parts has no complete verb then we can assume that the helping verb from the 1st part is applicable to the 2nd part

Ex - few people have significantly reduced the amount of driving they do or [have significantly] made

And If the 2nd part has a complete verb then the helping verb from the 1st half do not apply to the 2nd part.

Ex - She is determined to go to the concert and (NO IS) rated the band 10 on a scale of 10

Cheers

[thanghnvn]

Pls, explain the use of "few" and "nor" in A. I think it wrong but not understand why. pls, help.

[zhongshanlh]

i have questions about the usage of few and nor in this problem.
1.i think that "few" always means negative, so whenever "few" is used in a sentence ,the real meaning the sentence is that the number of the thing described by "few" is zero and so the sentence is actually a negative sentence. basing on the thought mentioned above , i chose E because i remember that we have to use "or" to connect parallel parts of the sentence in a negative sentence.
am i thinking right?

2.in A and C, i notice that the sentences use "nor",is it correctly used here?and is there any key point when we meet "nor" in the sentences?
Ron, experts, pls help. thank you so much.

3.and one more question is about the tense in the correct sentence.

"few people have significantly reduced the amount of driving they do or made fuel efficiency a priority when shopping for cars."

is the "made fuel blah blah blah" simple past tense here?
and i am a little confused about whether i could regard the sentence as one with the word "have" omitted? just like this:

"few people have significantly reduced the amount of driving they do or (have) made fuel efficiency a priority when shopping for cars."

and allow me to dig further about this question, in parallel parts of the sentences, could i omit auxiliary verbs?

[RonPurewal]

i have questions about the usage of few and nor in this problem.
1.i think that "few" always means negative, so whenever "few" is used in a sentence ,the real meaning the sentence is that the number of the thing described by "few" is zero and so the sentence is actually a negative sentence. basing on the thought mentioned above , i chose E because i remember that we have to use "or" to connect parallel parts of the sentence in a negative sentence.
am i thinking right?

if you're being literal here, you're wrong; if you're just making an analogy between two constructions, you're right.

what i mean is this:
you wrote "the real meaning is that the number ... is zero".
hopefully you didn't mean this in a literal sense; that is, i hope it's clear that "few" means, well, few (= "not many"), not zero.
if you say i have eaten few starchy foods this month, then you are NOT implying that you have eaten zero starchy foods. in fact, you are implying that the number is small, but definitely nonzero. if the number were actually zero, then "few" would be an inaccurate description.

on the other hand, if your point is to highlight the idea that "few NOUNs" works in the same way as "no NOUNs", then, yes, that's correct.

2.in A and C, i notice that the sentences use "nor",is it correctly used here?

in general, "nor" is used to construct another negative idea that's parallel to the first one. i have absolutely no idea how to articulate a "rule" for this, so, instead, i'll just throw a bunch of examples at you.

i have not completed the exam, nor will i be able to finish it tonight.
--> 2 negative verbs

no one has ever climbed that tower, nor has anyone ever scaled this fence.
--> 2 statements about "no one". (i've never thought consciously about this before, but i guess you can say that "nor ... anyone" is equivalent, and thus parallel, to "no one".)

few people have ever climbed that tower, nor have many (people) scaled this fence.
--> 2 statements about "few". (again, this is my first time thinking about this consciously, but i guess you can say that "nor ... many" is equivalent, and hence parallel, to "few".)

and is there any key point when we meet "nor" in the sentences?

i don't understand what this questions means. sorry.

3.and one more question is about the tense in the correct sentence.

"few people have significantly reduced the amount of driving they do or made fuel efficiency a priority when shopping for cars."

is the "made fuel blah blah blah" simple past tense here?
and i am a little confused about whether i could regard the sentence as one with the word "have" omitted? just like this:

"few people have significantly reduced the amount of driving they do or (have) made fuel efficiency a priority when shopping for cars."

same tense both times. (the tenses have to be the same, because the timeframes and contexts are identical.)

you shouldn't think of it as "omission", because it's not omission -- it's just a parallel structure that starts after the word "have" (and also after "significantly").
i.e.,
[i]few people have significantly ...
1/
reduced xxxxxxx
OR
2/
made xxxxxxx

the "have", which lies outside the parallel structure, applies to both parts of it.

and allow me to dig further about this question, in parallel parts of the sentences, could i omit auxiliary verbs?

in general, this question is misguided. as in the case presented above, the things you're viewing as "omissions" are not actually omissions.

[nikhil.baveja]

People say, that E is perfectly parallel, however i ruled out E because as per me "that few people have...X or HAVE made..
I think the second have is missing, how do we justify that?

Thanks,
Nikhil

[tim]

first --
OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; please note that doing so is a complete waste of your time and effort. i.e., exactly 0% of the time that you spend posting "isn't this official answer wrong?" is productive, and exactly 100% of that time is wasted.

"is this correct?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking.
you will suddenly find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you retire the idea that they might be wrong.

As to your question, "reduced ... or made" is the parallelism. If you're looking at the "have", you're going about this backwards. You should NEVER look at what's on the left and try to match it with something on the right. Instead, look at the word on the right and try to match it with something on the left.

[nikhil.baveja]

Thanks Tim,

It may sound that I was questioning the OA, but I wasn't I was just trying to understand the rationale behind it,

so in this sentence I was looking at wrong pair of words to be parallel..got it..hmm...

thanks again for the help :)

[tim]

That's always the issue with parallelism - the GMAT is trying to get you to pair up the wrong words! :)

[HanzZ]

same tense both times. (the tenses have to be the same, because the timeframes and contexts are identical.)

you shouldn't think of it as "omission", because it's not omission -- it's just a parallel structure that starts after the word "have" (and also after "significantly").
i.e.,
[i]few people have significantly ...
1/
reduced xxxxxxx
OR
2/
made xxxxxxx

the "have", which lies outside the parallel structure, applies to both parts of it.

and allow me to dig further about this question, in parallel parts of the sentences, could i omit auxiliary verbs?[/quote]

in general, this question is misguided. as in the case presented above, the things you're viewing as "omissions" are not actually omissions.

----
Hello Ron,

Can one interpret the parallel structure as including 'have' so as to repeat 'have' right after 'or', namely 'or have made'?

Which one do you think is more GMAT-like?

Thanks as always!

[RonPurewal]

Can one interpret the parallel structure as including 'have' so as to repeat 'have' right after 'or', namely 'or have made'?

i'm sorry; i don't understand this question.

if you're proposing an alternate wording of the sentence, please write out that wording. thanks.

[HanzZ]

Can one interpret the parallel structure as including 'have' so as to repeat 'have' right after 'or', namely 'or have made'?

i'm sorry; i don't understand this question.

if you're proposing an alternate wording of the sentence, please write out that wording. thanks.

---
Hello Ron,

Sorry for the confusion and thanks for your kind reply. What I meant was:

You mentioned that 'have' lies outside the parallel structure so the sentence reads:

...few people have significantly reduced the amount of driving they do or made...

My question is, is it ok to make 'have' lie inside the parallel structure so the sentence reads:

...few people have significantly reduced the amount of driving they do or have made...

And then I asked which one do you think GMAC prefers.

Thank you very much!

[RonPurewal]

You can do that, yes. You would never face a choice between the two, because both are correct.

If you had "either" in there along with "or", then you would not have both options.

I.e.,
Few people have reduced xxxxx or made yyyy
--> correct; the parallel structures are "reduced xxxxx" or "made yyyy"

Few people have reduced xxxxx or have made yyyy
--> correct; the parallel structures are "have reduced xxxxx" or "have made yyyy"

Few people have either reduced xxxxx or made yyyy
--> correct; the parallel structures are "reduced xxxxx" or "made yyyy"

Few people have either reduced xxxxx or have made yyyy
--> incorrect; either is followed by just "reduced xxxxx", but or is followed by "HAVE made yyyy"

If you are not 100.000000% clear on this, then check out the "thursdays with ron" video on parallelism. It's from some time in spring of 2010, I think.