Almost a decade after New York State passed laws to protect

[RonPurewal]

And Is Option (D) incorrect because
1. Parallel elements contain a "breaking" (a participle) & work (a verb)

Yep. "Breaking" is not a verb. "Work" is a verb.
(I don't know/remember the term "participle", so I can't say for 100% sure whether you're right about the terminology "” but that's immaterial; the distinction of verb vs. modifier is the key.)

The way choice D is written, the only thing that's allowed to be parallel to "more than half the residenst work..." is "twelve hospitals were investigated..."
Those clearly aren't intended to be parallel structures, so that choice makes no sense. (As you've already pointed out, the grammar disallows any sensible interpretation.)

[lsyang1212]

I think in sentence C meaning is not asking us HOW twelve hospitals are breaking the laws. If meaning would have been such then I believe your concerns would have been valid but here meaning is asking what investigation has found, so we need to make all these parallel.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

--

Willy!

Correct! An investigation has found THAT X, THAT Y, and THAT Z.

By the way, original poster, please provide an original source for this question.

How do we know what the sentence's intended meaning is? The sentence could have very well been trying to express that the twelve hospitals broke the laws by doing X and Y. Here, the correct answer tells us that the twelve hospitals did X, Y, and Z.

How can we confidently make that distinction of meaning vs parallelism?

Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

How do we know what the sentence's intended meaning is? The sentence could have very well been trying to express that the twelve hospitals broke the laws by doing X and Y. Here, the correct answer tells us that the twelve hospitals did X, Y, and Z.

1/
In the purple case, what would be the function of "Z"?
(A sentence can't contain random useless words that have no relation to the rest of the sentence.)

2/
Determining intended meaning is a task best suited to everyday common sense. Don't over-think these things.
If you were to read this sentence in a newspaper or magazine, you would immediately realize that x, y, and z were three of the same type of observation (= abusive labor practices in hospitals), and that they are thus three "bullet points".

[solitaryreaper]

2. Modifier "finding that all twelve consistently...." seems to be modifying "twelve hospitals" instead of "investigation"

This, on the other hand, is a valid objection.

Hi Ron,

I have a doubt in option A . Can we treat "finding that all twelve consistently..." as an appositive construction (with 'finding' acting as an abstract noun)?
If that's true, this appositive can hold the idea of entire previous clause (twelve hospitals have been investigated by state medical officials) , something that seems to make sense.

Regards,
SR

[RonPurewal]

nope. that isn't a noun.

if that were a noun, it would have to have "a" or "the" in front of it.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx, a finding that revolutionized many fields of study.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx, the finding that led to the government's ban on Chemical Y.

also, you can just look at the way the word is used in the sentence -- it's used in the same way as "They found that...".
if you put a noun there—like "result" or "statistic"—the sentence won't make any sense at all.

[amardeeps400]

nope. that isn't a noun.

if that were a noun, it would have to have "a" or "the" in front of it.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx, a finding that revolutionized many fields of study.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx, the finding that led to the government's ban on Chemical Y.

also, you can just look at the way the word is used in the sentence -- it's used in the same way as "They found that...".
if you put a noun there—like "result" or "statistic"—the sentence won't make any sense at all.

Hi Ron
I also figured our option c but i rejected it becuase i was expecting "more than half OF the surgical residents"
i REJCTED THIS OPTION JUST BECAUSE "OF " was not present.Can you tell me where is my understadning wrong??

[RonPurewal]

that's exactly where your understanding is wrong. (:

it's correct to write "half of the x's"; it's also correct to write "half the x's".

[harika.apu]

Why is e wrong here ?
i understand that
investigation found that 1) twelve hospitals do x , 2) many residents work longer than
could have been connected by "and"
Is this the reason for e being wrong ?

Thanks,
Harika

[RonPurewal]

there's no "and" anywhere in that sentence. that's a HUGE error.

with something so important missing from the fundamental structure of the sentence, there's little point in nit-picking the subtleties of that choice any further.