One list, four jobs
Watching a list change form as what it lists changes.
Passage
A museum is drafting a sign about its conservation studio. The same three activities appear in every version, and the sentence around them changes.
(1) In the studio, conservators clean paintings, ___ frames and ___ losses.
(2) The studio's work involves the cleaning of paintings, the repair of frames and ___
(3) Visitors can watch conservators clean a painting, repair a frame or ___
(4) The post requires the ability to clean a painting, to repair a frame and ___
Answers in order, explanations withheld, and a report on where the chain broke.
- 41.1Parallel structureStandard
Which pair completes sentence 1?
- Arepair ... retouch
- Brepairing ... retouching
- Cto repair ... to retouch
- Drepair ... retouching
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
repair ... retouch
The list runs on from "conservators", so every item is a plain verb agreeing with that subject: clean, repair, retouch. Mixing forms within one list, as the last choice does, is the error that survives a quick read.
- 41.2Parallel structureStandard
Builds on: Question 1 answered with bare verbs. The same three activities take a different form here because the sentence around them asks for nouns, which is the point: the rule is not about the activities.
Which choice completes sentence 2?
- Aretouching losses.
- Bthe retouching of losses.
- Cto retouch losses.
- Dlosses are retouched.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
the retouching of losses.
Here the list is of things the work "involves", and the first two items are noun phrases built the same way: "the cleaning of", "the repair of". The third has to match that shape, not the verb shape of sentence 1.
- 41.3Parallel structureStandard
Builds on: Questions 1 and 2. Two of the three sentences so far take bare verbs and one takes nouns, which shows the form is set by what precedes the list rather than by any property of the list itself.
Which choice completes sentence 3?
- Aretouching a loss.
- Bthe retouching of a loss.
- Cretouch a loss.
- Dto retouch a loss.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
retouch a loss.
The list runs on from "can watch conservators", so the items are bare verbs again — but for a different reason than in sentence 1, where they agreed with the subject. Here they follow a verb of perception.
- 41.4Parallel structureChallenge
Builds on: All three earlier sentences. The same three activities have now taken three different forms, each set by the words in front of the list, which is what parallel structure is actually a rule about.
Which choice completes sentence 4?
- Aretouch a loss.
- Bretouching a loss.
- Cto retouch a loss.
- Dthe retouching of a loss.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
to retouch a loss.
"The ability to clean... to repair... and to retouch" — the first two items carry "to", so the third must as well. Dropping it would attach "retouch" to "the ability" without the infinitive that connects them.