The Grammar Doctor

Parallelism Quiz Answers

1. Penelope's goals were a successful career, making a lot of money, and to marry the man she loved. (The coordinate ideas in this sentence are expressed as a noun, a participial phrase, and an infinitive phrase.)

There is more than one way to correct the sentence. For example, we could make the key words in the coordinate ideas all nouns.

Penelope's goals were a successful career, a good salary, and a marriage based on love.

Another way to correct the problem with parallelism is to make all the key terms infinitive phrases.

Penelope's goals were to have a successful career, to make a lot of money, and to marry the man she loved.

2. His work was a mess, all mixed up, and it wasn't well planned. (The coordinate ideas in this sentence are expressed as a noun, an adjective, and a clause. We're going to make them all adjectives.)

His work was messy, confused, and poorly planned.

3. When he left his home town, he was lonely, a recluse, and nobody liked him. (The coordinate ideas in this sentence are in the form of an adjective, a noun, and a clause. We're going to make them all adjectives.)

When he left his home town, he was lonely, reclusive, and unliked.

back to parallelism page

Back to the quiz