OG (10th ed) - SC - #221

[Saurabh Malpani]

Source: OG 10th Edition Q 221

My question here is can someone please explain me the Sentence constuction here and how in A Risk and Aid are parallel!!! I will really appreciate that!

Eating saltwater fish may significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks and also aid for sufferers of rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, according to
three research studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A) significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks and also aid for
B )be significant in reducing the risk of heart attacks and aid for
C )significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks and aid
D )cause a significant reduction in the risk of heart attacks and aid to
E) significantly reduce the risk of heart attacks as well as aiding


Choices A, B, and D each produce a clearly unintended meaning: by using aid as a noun rather than a verb, each creates a misleading parallel with the noun risk so that the sentences nonsensically state that eating saltwater fish may reduce aid as well as risk. In addition, B and D are
wordy and awkward. Choice C, the best answer, avoids the prepositions/or (from A and B) and to (from D), instead using aid as a verb that is parallel with reduce. Choice E lacks the grammatical parallelism of may reduce... and aid, the compound verb in C.

[StaceyKoprince]

This is a tricky one!

The core structure of the initial sentence:
Eating fish may reduce [X and also Y]. The "reduce" applies to both noun X (risk) and noun Y (aid). We know Y (aid) is used as a noun in the sentence because the construction says "aid for." "Aid for" cannot be parallel to reduce because the former is a noun and the latter is a verb.

Choice B does this same thing with slightly different words, as does choice D.

C and E both use the verb form of "aid" but E breaks the necessary parallelism ("reduce" and "aiding").

Core structure of C:
Eating fish may [reduce X and aid Y].