Question

which sentence has the strongest parallelism? select the best answer.

answer

• that morning, i shoveled the driveway, drinking hot chocolate, and made a fire.
• generally, driving in snow requires four-wheel drive, slow speeds, and extra vigilance.
• you may want to watch out for deer, slowing down at intersections, and steer clear of patches of ice.

Explanation:

🆕 New Concept Discovered: Parallel Structure
Matching grammatical forms in a list

Step 1: Understand parallel structure

Parallelism means using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance. This happens when items in a list or comparison share the same grammatical structure (e.g., all nouns, all gerunds, or all past-tense verbs).

Step 2: Analyze the first sentence

• Sentence: "That morning, I shoveled the driveway, drinking hot chocolate, and made a fire."
• List items:

1. shoveled (past-tense verb phrase)
2. drinking (present participle/gerund phrase)
3. made (past-tense verb phrase)

• Analysis: The second item breaks the pattern. To be parallel, it should be "drank hot chocolate." This sentence has faulty parallelism.

Step 3: Analyze the second sentence

• Sentence: "Generally, driving in snow requires four-wheel drive, slow speeds, and extra vigilance."
• List items:

1. four-wheel drive (noun phrase)
2. slow speeds (noun phrase)
3. extra vigilance (noun phrase)

• Analysis: All three items in the list are noun phrases. The grammatical structure is perfectly balanced and consistent.

Step 4: Analyze the third sentence

• Sentence: "You may want to watch out for deer, slowing down at intersections, and steer clear of patches of ice."
• List items:

1. watch out (base verb phrase)
2. slowing down (gerund phrase)
3. steer clear (base verb phrase)

• Analysis: The second item breaks the pattern. To be parallel, it should be "slow down." This sentence has faulty parallelism.

Answer:

Generally, driving in snow requires four-wheel drive, slow speeds, and extra vigilance.