Hi Ron,

D. As traditional pharmacies, so online drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful
Your comment above says "as" cannot be used with nouns. Can we use "like" instead?

E. Like traditional pharmacies, the cornerstone of a successful online drugstore is prescriptions
Your comment above says that if we have NOUN is/are NOUN, then the noun that comes BEFORE the verb is the subject. Can you please give us some examples of similar constructions?

Thanks!

sure, but you'd have to kill "so" (it's unidiomatic to write "like X, so Y").




sure -- these two should form a sufficient illustration:

the hardest part of the test WAS the first three questions.
the first three questions WERE the hardest part of the test.
(both correct)

note that both of these sentences contain the same two elements -- "the hardest part of the test" and "the first three questions". however, as you can tell from the correct verb choices above, the one to the left of the verb is accorded the role of subject.

be careful not to confuse this sort of thing with backward construction, in which the element to the left of the verb is ineligible to be the subject:

on the table ARE two cell phones
harder than anything else on the test WERE the first three questions
(both correct)
in each of these examples, the words to the left of the verb are ineligible to be the subject; therefore, these sentences must adopt a backward construction, in which the subject follows the verb. if you are not familiar with such a construction, the most common example (by far) is "There is/are X", in which X is the subject.

Hi Ron,
I have a question regarding the meaning of the sentence.
Does the sentence means that "successful online drugstores rely on prescriptions" or "online drug stores rely on the success of prescriptions(for their own success)"?
Its a very subtle difference in my opinion,but wants your thoughts on this.

the original meaning of the sentence is that it's the drugstores that are trying to be successful.

interestingly, this is one of those things that native speakers will pick up without effort; i didn't even think about this possible double meaning until seeing this post.
in the idiomatic expression “to rely/depend on X to VERB”, it's the subject of “rely/depend” who is trying to VERB; "X" is not trying to VERB.
for instance
i rely on drugs to stay awake on sundays
--> this is a correctly written sentence; the meaning, of course, is that *i* am trying to stay awake on sundays (i.e., the drugs are not trying to stay awake).

Hi Ron, I think "case" in correct answer refers to prescriptiosn are the cornerstone....

is it right?

and in correct answer, "as is the case with traditional pharmacies" , I think some words may be omited in this fragment, right?

correct, as long as you are talking about meaning when you say “refers to”. (i.e., “is/was the case” is not a construction that requires a precise grammatical antecedent -- in fact, that's the whole point of this construction.)



as noted above, “is/was the case” is a construction that is allowed to stand for the entire idea in the rest of the comparison; it does not require any sort of grammatical parallelism, so there's really no such thing as “omitted words” here. (the concept of “omission” only makes sense when you are actually matching up grammatically parallel constructions.)

As it is with traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful, since it is primarily prescriptions that attract the customers, who then also buy other health related items.

A. As it is with traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful
B. As with the case of traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to have success
C. As is the case with traditional pharmacies, prescriptions are the cornerstone of a successful on-line drugstore
D. As traditional pharmacies, so on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful
E. Like traditional pharmacies, the cornerstone of a successful on-line drugstore is prescriptions.

Hey Ron,

I am still not seeing the "lack of parallelism" that you've noted in (A). The "it" in (A) is a dummy pronoun, I don't think it is standing for anything, as it is the case in the second clause starting with " , since it is primarily prescriptions that ..."

(Note the usage of "as it is the case" in my sentence above :))

As you've noted " is/was/were/was/would the case" is very robust and can stand for entire clauses. In the correct answer (C), "is the case" stands for the clause "prescriptions are the cornerstone"

How could we fix (A) to make it parallel? A possible suggestion:

As it is with traditional pharmacies, with on-line drugstores ??
As it is with X, with Y ??
Thank you in advance Ron!

nope.

the only constructions in which what you are calling a “dummy pronoun” is allowed are listed in the following post:
post49622.html#p49622

note that the second "it" (the one about prescriptions) is in that list.



also wrong.



first --
in general, you shouldn't try to do this.
don't try to fix sentences!
even though this section of the test is called, ironically, “sentence correction”, you do not need to be able to fix the sentences; you only need to be able to select the correct answer choice from the choices given.
trying to fix the sentences is an irrelevant skill set; if you do too much of this, it will distract you from the skill set that you actually need. moreover, most users' attempts to fix sentences create numerous other errors, many of which are outside the scope of what is tested on the gmat.

if you want extra practice using correct constructions, DO NOT rewrite the current sentences; instead, make your own (much simpler) examples that use those constructions.

--

neither of those fixes works, because the pronoun "it" is still incorrect.

As it is with traditional pharmacies, on-line drugstores rely on prescriptions to be successful, since it is primarily prescriptions that attract the customers, who then also buy other health related items.

Hi Ron, quick question. What does that "it" refer to?

Please advice. Appreciated!!

Crane

see type #3 here:
post49622.html#p49622