Parallel Structure Quiz
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- covered with rocks
- rockiness
- rockily
- rocky
- Jon prefers article editing to advertisements.
- Jon prefers to edit articles than writing advertisements.
- Jon prefers editing articles rather than to write advertisements.
- Jon prefers editing articles to writing advertisements.
- Checking facts carefully is as important as clear writing.
- Writing clearly is as important as checking facts carefully.
- Clear writing is as important as you check facts carefully.
- To write clearly is as important as careful fact-checking.
Parallel Structure Quiz - Description and methodology of the test
Readers who want to edit English more precisely can use this assessment to check whether they recognize matching grammatical forms in lists, comparisons, and paired clauses. This parallel structure quiz is suited to learners, writers, and editors who want a focused review of sentence construction. As a parallelism quiz, it turns common coordination choices into a practical snapshot of current command.
What This Assessment Explores
The assessment measures practical control of parallel structure: keeping coordinated words, phrases, and clauses in matching grammatical forms. Items address lists of actions or qualities, comparisons that align like with like, and paired constructions such as not only…but also, either/or, and both/and. The result shows how consistently a respondent can recognize the form that makes a sentence balanced and clear.
Its focused design makes it a parallelism grammar quiz for English learners, students, writers, and editors who want targeted review. The recurring content areas are:
- Parallel Structure Knowledge (0-16) records overall performance: Foundations to Build is 0-6, Developing Command is 7-12, and Strong Command is 13-16.
- Lists and series show whether related nouns, adjectives, gerunds, infinitives, or verb phrases match.
- Comparisons show whether both sides are grammatically and logically aligned.
- Paired constructions show whether linked alternatives or clauses keep equivalent structure.
Methodology and Scientific Basis
The format is a parallelism quiz with answer choices. Each item presents a sentence or brief editing situation, followed by alternatives that differ in grammatical form or balance. Selecting the best option tests recognition of standard patterns rather than extended writing.
Scoring is direct: each correct answer adds one point, and the total is read through the three displayed bands. Those bands describe performance on this questionnaire, not population norms. A higher result suggests stronger recognition across the examples; an uneven result can identify practice needs in coordination, comparison, or correlative conjunctions.
The conceptual basis is consistent with Frazier et al. (1984), whose work examined parallel structure in sentence comprehension. Goodall’s treatment of coordination, causatives, and restructuring, alongside Huddleston, Pullum, and Reynolds, explains why matching forms clarify relationships between sentence elements. The questionnaire is conceptually consistent with these works and is not a standardized adaptation of them.
Performance can vary with reading, prior instruction, attention, and answer choices. Use the result as an educational snapshot and check transfer with broader writing samples.
- Frazier, Lyn, Lori Taft, Tom Roeper, Charles Clifton, and Kate Ehrlich. “Parallel Structure: A Source of Facilitation in Sentence Comprehension.” Memory & Cognition, vol. 12, no. 5, 1984, pp. 421-430. 10.3758/BF03198303
- Goodall, Grant. Parallel Structures in Syntax: Coordination, Causatives, and Restructuring. Cambridge University Press, 1987.
- Huddleston, Rodney, Geoffrey K. Pullum, and Brett Reynolds. A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar. 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2022. 10.1017/9781009085748
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