SC QUESTION

[APARIDA]

Hi,

Could you please let me know which of the following sentences is/are correct from GMAT standpoint and why?

I am capable of doing X and Y.
I am capable of doing X and doing Y.
I am capable of doing X and of doing Y.

Similarly,

I have been to London and Paris.
I have been to London and to Paris.
I have been to London and been to Paris.
I have been to London and have been to Paris.

Is there any generic rule which we can follow to answer such questions e.g questions involving repetitions?

Appreciate your guidance & help.

[kramacha1979]

I would go with 1) because it is concise in the first place and conveys the message without altering the meaning.

I am not sure about 3) and 4) because you have usage of and and one of the parallel elements is a clause < I have..to London> and the other doesn't have an explicit subject..

[commit.gmat]

I agree with kramacha1979.

here is my reasoning.

Gramatically all of them are correct. But for rhetoric purposes and conciseness, first one in both the cases is correct.

When you are using same verb for both the nouns (parallel meaning), the meaning is understood. - I see this explanation a lot from the OG answer explanations.

When you are saying I have been to London and Paris, meaning is very clear that you have been to both the places. In this situation, using another 'to', 'been to', or 'have been to' is redundant, although they are grammatically correct.

Following the GMC (grammer, meaning, concision) principle or Three Cs principle (correct grammer, clear meaning, concision) of Sentence Correction, all of the formations will pass the first two principles, but when we apply the third principle, which is concision, first sentence is correct.

In the answer choices, if all the below choices are available (which is rare), first one would the correct one.
I have been to London and Paris.
I have been to London and to Paris.
I have been to London and been to Paris.
I have been to London and have been to Paris.

But if only below choices are available, this would be the right answer
I have been to London and to Paris.
I have been to London and been to Paris.
I have been to London and have been to Paris.

I have seen both the usages in GMAT answers. But I haven't see any 3rd or 4th variations.

Experts out there, correct me if something doesn't make sense.

All the best for your GMAT.

[JonathanSchneider]

Grammatically, they are all correct, as they are all parallel. In the case that X and Y represent nouns, the first versions would be correct. However, in the case that X and Y represent longer phrases, or phrases modified by clauses, etc., you might then want to use one of the later versions. When we need to demonstrate parallelism between two elements that are broken up by a long middle-man, we will use the introductory words (often of, by, etc.) after the parallel marker (and, or, etc.) to make the connection more clear.