📘 Chapter 5 — Parallelism

Parallelism

Using the same grammatical structure for items in a list or comparison

Parallel list rule

All items in a list must have the same grammatical form

Parallel verbs

All verbs in a list must be in the same tense and form

Parallel nouns

All nouns in a list must match in form

Parallel gerunds

Gerunds in a list must all end in -ing

Parallel infinitives

Infinitives in a list must all use to plus verb

Mixing forms error

Combining different grammatical forms in a list

Parallelism with and

Elements joined by and must be parallel

Parallelism with or

Elements joined by or must be parallel

Parallelism with nor

Elements joined by nor must be parallel

Correlative conjunctions

Either/or, neither/nor, not only/but also, both/and

Either or parallelism

Both elements must have the same grammatical structure

Neither nor parallelism

Both elements must match grammatically

Not only but also parallelism

The structure after not only must match the structure after but also

Both and parallelism

Both elements must be grammatically identical

Parallel comparisons

Items being compared must be in the same grammatical form

Parallel clauses

Clauses joined together must have the same structure

Faulty parallelism

Any violation of parallel structure

SAT parallelism focus

The SAT frequently tests lists, comparisons, and correlative conjunctions