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Repeat or don't repaet that "that"


Nil

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Review the following question (It is a correct answer) from [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip], testing parallelism

 

It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed on shelves and how frequently inventory turns over can be crucial to profits.

 

OG explains that here the model is "X and Y are crucial" and X and Y need to be in parallel .

[tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] does not repeat "that" with Y. In other words, correct answer does NOT read :

It is well known in the soipermarket industry that how items are placed on shelves and THAT how frequently inventory turns over can be crucial to profits.

 

However, notice repetation of "that' in following statement.

 

A panel concluded that malnutrition is the most serious health problem facing the third world countries, but that it can and will be eradicated with the assistance of developed countries.

 

Now my question is what are the rules govering repetation of "that".

 

Similarly , in [tooltip=Official Guide]OG[/tooltip] there are number of questions where (and) that , (which) that repetation are tested.

I do have a few more generic (GMAT) grammer questions that I will be asking in separate threads.

 

Thanks,

 

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Okay, you are asking an advanced question about parallel structure. In many cases, we have more than one element that is parallel.

 

Let's say you have something like the following:

 

I know that you are very smart and that you are strong as well.

 

In this sentence, we have three things that are EXACTLY the same:

 

    [*]that [*]you[*]are

 

Depending on the sentence, you might all or none of the repeated elements.

 

If the sentence is short and sweet, we can omit more stuff:

 

I know that you are very smart and strong.

 

If there's more "stuff" intervening, we might choose to add one of these elements to "remind" the reader just what's parallel:

 

I know that you are very smart when it's later in the day and you've had your coffee and that you are strong as well.

 

In this case, the that serves to remind us just what part of the previous sentence the next part is going to parallel.

 

And that's the way it works. :)

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