Multiple choice

Directions: This question presents a sentence, all or part of which is underlined. Beneath the sentence you will find five ways of phrasing the underlined part. The first of these repeats the original; the other four are different. If you think the original is best, choose the first answer; otherwise choose one of the others. When I interviewed my mathematician friend on his likes and dislikes, he told me that he revels in chocolate, strolling under the moonlight, and songs from the old jazz period.

  1. he revels in chocolate, strolling under the moonlight, and songs from the old jazz period

  2. he loves eating chocolate, taking moonlit strolls and classic jazz singing

  3. he revels in sweet chocolate, long moonlit strolls, and classical jazz music

  4. he loves sweet chocolate, long moonlight strolls, and classical jazz music

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Explanation for (1): Type of error: parallelism

The given sentence has a grammatical pattern that looks like a jumbled mess of different parts of speech being used in different ways. The sentence has a grammatical pattern as follows: 'Chocolate' [the object of preposition]; 'walking under the moonlight' [gerund-preposition-definite article- object of preposition]; and 'songs from the old jazz period' [direct object, preposition, definite article, adjective, adjective, object of preposition]

Explanation for (2): The option does not maintain the same grammatical pattern throughout and is hence unparallel.
Justification for (3): The given sentence has a grammatical pattern that looks like a jumbled mess of different parts of speech being used in different ways. This option makes the sentence parallel in structure, and thus rhythmical to read and hear.
Explanation for (4): The sentence is incorrect due to the use of “moonlight” in place of “moonlit”. “Moonlight” is a noun and its use affects the grammatical pattern of the sentence. Explanation for (5): The sentence uses of “moonlight” in place of “moonlit”. Also, “songs” are replaced by 'singing'. This changes the meaning of the sentence.