Question

read the sentence.

jalen picked up his camera and began taking pictures of the majestic mountains and the magnificent sunset.

which elements of this sentence are parallel?

• \mountains\ and \magnificent\
• \camera\ and \taking pictures\
• \picked up\ and \taking\
• \majestic mountains\ and \magnificent sunset\

Explanation:

Analyze the sentence structure

The sentence is: "Jalen picked up his camera and began taking pictures of the majestic mountains and the magnificent sunset."
We need to identify which elements in this sentence are parallel. Parallelism means using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance. This can happen at the word, phrase, or clause level.

Evaluate the coordinating conjunctions

The sentence contains two coordinating conjunctions ("and"):

1. "...picked up his camera and began taking..."

• This connects two verb phrases: "picked up his camera" (past tense verb phrase) and "began taking pictures..." (past tense verb phrase).

1. "...pictures of the majestic mountains and the magnificent sunset."

• This connects two noun phrases acting as objects of the preposition "of": "the majestic mountains" and "the magnificent sunset".

Match with the given options

Let's evaluate the options provided in the question:

• "mountains" and "magnificent": "mountains" is a noun, while "magnificent" is an adjective. They do not share the same grammatical form.
• "camera" and "taking pictures": "camera" is a noun, while "taking pictures" is a gerund phrase. They are not grammatically parallel.
• "picked up" and "taking": "picked up" is a past-tense verb, while "taking" is a present participle/gerund. They are not parallel.
• "majestic mountains" and "magnificent sunset": Both are noun phrases structured as [adjective + noun]. They are connected by the coordinating conjunction "and" as compound objects of the preposition "of". This represents a perfect parallel structure.

Answer:

• (A) "mountains" and "magnificent"
• (B) "camera" and "taking pictures"
• (C) "picked up" and "taking"
• (D) "majestic mountains" and "magnificent sunset" (Correct answer)