ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by bad students. So, our apologies: it was

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turned in late with no spell check run on it.

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

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The teacher said that he was a poor student because he waited until the last minute to

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study for the exam, completed his lab problems in a careless manner,

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and his motivation was low.

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Our quest for parallel construction continues with this question, where we're confronted

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with a monstrous list that's not parallel in the least.

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The first item on this list begins with "waited,"

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a verb that we know is in the past tense because of its "E-D" ending.

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The next item on the list maintains the status quo by beginning with the past tense verb "completed."

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The final item, however, messes up the flow by starting with the adjective-noun combo

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"his motivation."

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Since the construction here is decidedly not parallel, we can go ahead and nix choice (A).

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Choice (C) gets crazy with its tenses.

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Though the list starts with the past tense verb "waited," choice (C) inexplicably shifts

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into present tense with the verbs "is" and "has."

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Shifting tense is a cardinal sin in the church of parallel construction, so we can kick choice

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(C) to the curb.

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(B) gets needlessly fancy by throwing a participle into the mix. A participle is a word derived

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from a verb, which functions as an adjective.

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Here, "having" functions as an adjective by describing the pronoun "him," which stands

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in for our slack student.

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Neither of the other items in the list are participle phrases, though. So all of this

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effort is for naught.

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Choice (D) is the right answer because it begins each item on the list with a past tense

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verb.

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"Completed," "lacked," and "waited" go together like peas and carrots.

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