Judge Bonham denied a motion to allow members of the jury to

[ghong14]

I changed the question for copyright purposes:

Professor John denied a request to allow his students to take the test home instead of to take the test in the class.

(A) to allow his students to take the test home instead of to take the test in the class
(B) that would have allowed his students to take the test homey instead of taking the test to
(C) under which his students to take the test home instead of confining them in
(D) that would allow his students to take the test home the end of each day rather than to
(E) to allow his students to take the test rather than be confined to

E is the correct answer. I am not really seeing what this sentence is trying to test. Parallelism. If so why isn't D parrallel. In addition is Instead of and rather than a valid split in this question?

[RonPurewal]

Your choice (d) is perfectly fine, as is your choice (e).

Go back and look at #94 in the OG verbal supplement (= the problem upon which this one is based). You've completely taken out the thing that breaks the parallelism.

[RonPurewal]

In addition is Instead of and rather than a valid split in this question?

The only thing you need to know is that "instead of" -- like "of" in general -- has to be followed by a noun.
"Taking" and "confining" in these choices are noun forms, so there's no elimination there.

("Rather than" has no such restriction; it can connect any two parallel structures at all.)

--

Also, you may want to watch your typing. You somehow turned "at home" into "homey" in choice B.

[calm.jing]

Hi Ron,

I understand that this problem can be solved on the ground of parallelism, but I still have a question about "to allow" in the sentence.

Why does "to allow" modify "a request" (or "a motion", in the OG version)? I thought it can also modify the subject of the sentence (or the entire preceding clause), to show the purpose of the denial. So I thought the sentence did not have a clear meaning.

I am guessing the answer, and correct me if I am wrong. Is it because "a request/ motion" on itself is too vague, and we need to specify what the subject is denying?

Thanks very much!
:)

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

I understand that this problem can be solved on the ground of parallelism, but I still have a question about "to allow" in the sentence.

Why does "to allow" modify "a request" (or "a motion", in the OG version)? I thought it can also modify the subject of the sentence (or the entire preceding clause), to show the purpose of the denial. So I thought the sentence did not have a clear meaning.

It's obvious from context that "to allow..." describes the request, so it's fine.
The alternative interpretation ("In order to allow xxxxx, the professor denied an unspecified request") is nonsense.

Just think about whether you'd have any doubts about the meaning of this sentence if you saw it in a newspaper or magazine.
You wouldn't, right?
Then it's ok.

[RonPurewal]

I am guessing the answer, and correct me if I am wrong. Is it because "a request/ motion" on itself is too vague, and we need to specify what the subject is denying?

Yes, it should be clear that the sentence is not simply going to mention "a request" without describing the content of the request!

Again, "If I saw this in a magazine, would I know what it meant?" is a sufficient test.