Select the sentence that illustrates the use of proper parallel construction. a. He wanted three things out of college: to learn a skill, to make good friends, and to learn about life. b. He wanted three things out of college: to learn a skill, to make good friends, and learning about life.

Question

English

Chad Barry

7 July, 13:55

Select the sentence that illustrates the use of proper parallel construction. a. He wanted three things out of college: to learn a skill, to make good friends, and to learn about life. b. He wanted three things out of college: to learn a skill, to make good friends, and learning about life.

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Emmy Blackwell · Answer 1

The answer is: a. He wanted three things out of college: to learn a skill, to make good friends, and to learn about life.

Explanation:

Let's remember that parallel structure - -or construction- - is a balance of one or more sentences that have the same grammatical structure. As you can see, your first option does have that, as it's listing three things in the infinitive form, whereas, the second option, has the first two activities in infinitive and the third one in gerund (-ing). So the parallelism is: to learn, to make, to learn. And not: to learn, to make, learning.