ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by slide presentations. We'll totally help

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you through this problem, as soon as we've finished boring you with our recent trip to Mexico.

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How should you change the underlined portion below, if at all?

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The student expected to present her report in the class, show her slide presentation,

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and would answer questions from interested students.

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The first two items begin with verbs in the present tense --"present" and "show"-- so

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the unyielding laws of parallel construction dictate that the third item should begin with

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a verb in the present tense as well.

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The original sentence breaks the law by putting the third item in the future past tense by using "would."

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The idea of future past tense makes our brains hurt a little bit, but it's actually simple

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if we take a second to break it down.

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It's when a verb is used to refer to the future from the perspective of some point in the past.

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An example might be, "One day the tiny child would be a giant Sumo wrestler."

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Whatever the case, this tense doesn't jibe with the simple present tense verbs of the

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rest of the list, so we can take choice (A) out of the running.

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Choice (D) tries to stick us with what seems to be a gerund, which is a word

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derived from a verb that actually functions as a noun.

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"Answering questions from interested students" is actually a gerund phase, and the whole

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thing can act as a noun.

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For example, we could say, "Answering questions from interested students was awful for Abigail."

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See how the phrase functions as a noun might as the subject of the sentence?

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In any case, this list doesn't have any room for gerunds or gerund phrases. We're looking

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for answer choice with simple present tense verbs, and (D) doesn't fit the bill.

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(C) does include the present tense verb "answer," which is exactly what we need. It still doesn't

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make the cut, though, because it adds "also" into the mix.

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"Also" is unnecessary here, and its presence might call down the wrath of the parallel

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construction police.

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It's best that we opt for choice (B), which is the exact same thing as (C), minus the

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also.

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Does anybody else ever wish that the laws of parallel construction would loosen up a bit?

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