martelena Wrote:At first, I thought that the choice A had the parallelism
a parallel structure with "and" wouldn't make sense here, because these two descriptions are not separate and independent. (in the structure "x and y", the "x" and "y" should be two separate, relatively independent things.)
when you first read the sentence, you should notice that the second description -- the description about a bunch of stuff frozen from top to bottom -- is elaborating on, or illustrating, the first description (too cold to support life). therefore, for the sentence to make sense, the second part should be written as a modifier of the first part.
But then I figured out that in that case we wouldn't need comma after "to support life", so I ruled out A mostly on that basis. Was I at least partially correct?
the gmat doesn't test punctuation, so you shouldn't worry overly much about issues of punctuation.
For example, would be such sentence correct (as awkward as it is)?
"Jupiter's moon Europa has long been with surface temperatures estimated at minus 230 degrees Fahrenheit considered far too cold to support life and with 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom."
thanks in advance
no, that's still very incorrect.
first, those structures shouldn't be parallel in the first place; see my explanation above.
second, you've turned "considered far too cold..." into a modifier that is modifying ... nothing that makes sense. (if that construction is a modifier, then the only thing that it can logically modifier is europa.)
third, the sentence is also unidiomatic in a couple of ways, but i will refrain from discussing those because gmac has announced that it doesn't test random idioms anymore.
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a reminder:
don't try to fix the sentences!
even though this section of the test is called, ironically, "sentence correction", you do not need to be able to fix the sentences; you only need to be able to select the correct answer choice from the choices given.
trying to fix the sentences is an irrelevant skill set; if you do too much of this, it will distract you from the skill set that you actually need. moreover, most users' attempts to fix sentences create numerous other errors (like the three new errors mentioned above), many of which are outside the scope of the gmat.
if you want extra practice using correct constructions, DO NOT rewrite the current sentences; instead, make your own (much simpler) examples that use those constructions.