The single-family house constructed by the Yana, a Native American people who lived in what is now northern california, was conical in shape, its framework of poles overlaid with slabs of bark, either cedar or pine, and banked with dirt to a height of three to four feet.

a. banked with dirt to a height of
b. banked with dirt as high as that of
c. banked them with dirt to a height of
d. was banked with dirt as high as
e. was banked with dirt as high as that of

I chose D because it seemed to best show parallelism (was conical...and was banked). However A is the right answer. Why is it A? Does it have anything to do with the 'a height of' and 'as high as' and how the two mean different things?

as a follow up, this is how I read the sentence when trying to solve it:

The single-family house constructed by the Yana, a Native American people who lived in what is now northern california, was conical in shape, its framework of poles overlaid with slabs of bark, either cedar or pine, and banked with dirt to a height of three to four feet.

I read it this way because I thought the portion "its framework..." is just filler for the sentence the test writers use to confuse the test takers. Is this the wrong approach?

wow, that's a bear of a problem. geez louise.

you are misreading the parallelism. you are correct that 'banked with dirt...' has to be parallel to something. unfortunately, though, the 'something' in question happens to be 'overlaid with slabs...'.

in other words, 'banked with dirt' applies to the framework of poles, not to the house itself.

but you have identified the other problem: there is a meaning shift. if you say 'dirt as high as four feet', you're implying that most of the dirt is well below the four-foot level, but that four feet is the maximum height. the correct answer choice, on the other hand, states that the height of the dirt bank is consistently three to four feet. remember, if the meaning of the original sentence is intellligible, you are not allowed to change it - a principle that decides the meaning in this case. (the meaning in choice d isn't absurd, but it conflicts with what you're told in the original sentence.)

a final problem with choice d is that the phrase 'as high as' should be followed by one value, not a range.
some of our players weigh as much as 300-325 pounds --> bad phrasing
some of our players weigh as much as 325 pounds --> good phrasing

Wow! Thanks a bunch Ron. That's one hell of an explanation.
I was wondering how we would figure whether 'banked with dirt' refers to 'house' or 'overlaid slabs'. But your explanation of the usage of 'as high as' answers that.

Yeah, good one! :)

_________________
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

Just to clarify, if the middle part was not there and it read something like "was conical in shape, and banked with dirt to a height of three to four feet", is "was" required a second time to maintain parallelism or can we assume that it is understood? i.e. do we need to say "was banked" assuming this was still meaning ful?

I was thinking of the "was conical" "was banked" as the two word verbs mentioned in the strategy guide, in which case second "was" is not necessary?

if you have that comma after "shape", then yes, you need the second "was".
if you don't have that comma, then the second "was" is optional (it would be parallel either way).

sorry but i don't understand why the explanation of the usage of "as high as" answered that questions. I am still confused about why "Banked with dirt" refers to "overlaid slabs"

Thank you.

It only did so indirectly. "As high as" means something different from "to a height of," which is the intended meaning (per Ron's discussion above). For that reason, (D) and (E) can be eliminated. It just so happens that (D) and (E) are the only choices that begin "was banked with." Since we are eliminating (D) and (E) for another reason, we don't need to speculate about whether "was banked with dirt" could be correctly interpreted as parallel to "was conical," as verbs following the subject "house."



eee, Ron said that "banked with dirt" and "overlaid with slabs" are parallel to each other, not that one refers to the other. Parallelism signs: (1) both have the same form ("verb-ed with noun"), (2) they are linked with an "and", and (3) both modify the "framework of poles." In other words, you should read it like this:

...its framework of poles banked with dirt...

and

...its framework of poles overlaid with slabs...

_________________
Emily Sledge
Instructor
ManhattanGMAT

ok let's say

this is the sentence:

The single-family house constructed by the Yana, a Native American people who lived in what is now northern california, was conical in shape, and was banked with dirt to a height of three to four feet.

Can we parallel an active and passive sentence.?

It's doubtful that the GMAT would ever have you construct a sentence with an active and a passive in parallel, as your sentence here has it. Moreover, notice that your sentence: 1) doesn't entirely make sense (it is not the houses that are banked, but the structure underneath); and 2) is not very concise: we would want to eliminate the comma and the "was," ideally, from the second part. I don't say this to pick on you, because I think yours is a great question, and I like that you invented this sentence for us to consider. I only bring up these objections because parallelism is not just some abstract rule; rather, it has an actual purpose: to boost clarity and concision at once. When you break parallelism, you are at risk of losing those other elements as well.

Hi Ron, in same question in another thread you mentioned that banked with dirt is parallel to conical in shape, while here you mentioned that it is parallel to overlaid with slabs, which one is corret and why?

Here is your reference quote:
the part starting with "its framework of poles..." is an appositive modifier (a descriptor), and is NOT parallel to "conical in shape". therefore, i'll yellow that part out, so it's easier to see the resultant parallelism in (a):

The singe-family house constructed by the Yana, a Native American people who lived in what is now northern California, was conical in shape, its framework of poles overlaid with slabs of bark, either cedar or pine, and banked with dirt to a height of three to four feet.

once those words are yellowed out, it should be easier to see that "conical in shape" is parallel to "banked with dirt...".

note that the appositive modifier CANNOT be parallel to the other elements of the sentence, because it's grammatically unlike those elements. this is how we know that we can eliminate it from the 'skeleton' of the sentence.

you're right. i edited that problem:

post17155.html#p17155

it's still ... let's just say, not the greatest problem that GMAC has ever written. ugh.

Okay, I don't understand this part of Ron's explanation.

The house was conical in shape, and was banked with dirt..

Since this a ,<conjunction>, don't we need the sentence after and to be a independent clause?
We could say
The house | was conical in shape and was banked with dirt..
or
The house was | conical in shape and banked with dirt

Can someone clarify?