Concrete Noun和Simple Gerunds平行？

Milletwoo

134. Recently implemented “shift-work equations” base on studies of the human sleep cycle

have reduced sickness, sleeping on the job, fatigue among shift workers, and have raised

production efficiency in various industries.

(A) fatigue among shift workers, and have raised

(B) fatigue among shift workers, and raised

(C) and fatigue among shift workers while raising

(D) lowered fatigue among shift workers, and raised

(E) and fatigue among shift workers was lowered while raising

Elroy大神总结说“Concrete Noun自己平行, Action Noun可和Complex Gerunds平行，Simple Gerunds不可和前面任何平行。”这里为什么出现了concrete noun和simple gerunds平行啊？求解释，谢谢！

Milletwoo

sickness可以和sleeping平行吗？有木有大神解释一下啊~

zhouqi8892

source: https://gmatclub.com/forum/recently-implemented-shift-work-equations-based-on-studies-of-the-hu-79239.html
Hi there,

Recently implemented "shift-work equations" based on studies of the human sleep cycle have reduced sickness, sleeping on the job, fatigue among shift workers, and have raised production efficiency in various industries.

There is no problem in the parallelism of the entities in the list because all the three entities are noun entities are grammatically parallel.

Yes, “sleeping on the job” is a gerund – a noun that denotes an action. However, “sickness” and “fatigue” are not Concrete Nouns. They are “Abstract Nouns”.

By definition, Concrete Nouns are those nouns that are perceivable through five senses whereas the Abstract Nouns are those nouns that can only be experienced or felt.

There is no problem in a gerund being parallel to other abstract noun phrases. Frankly speaking, we need not even get to these grammatical complications of these entities.

Remember, this is an official question. These entities, at least “sickness” and “sleeping on the job”, are in the non-underlined portion of the sentence. Hence, rather than asking whether usage is correct or not, we must learn such usages from these sentences as they ARE correct.

Also, “raising production…” is not a verb. Note that the verb-ing word by itself cannot be a continuous/progressive verb. It must be preceded by such helping verb as is/am/are/was/were etc. to function as a verb. For example:

1. I am writing a letter.
2. He was playing soccer.
3. They are going to school.

Hence, in the correct answer choice, there is just one verb – “have reduced”.

zhouqi8892

这里还有一个关于“paralleling a concrete noun with a simple gerund”的观点，这个instructor认为是可以的。
source:https://gmatclub.com/forum/1-i-am-confused-whether-a-gerund-by-itself-is-simple-or-95213.html
很有缘能在CD上搜到同一个对此深入了解的人（2014-2018）。希望对后面的朋友有所帮助。
izaidi wrote:
1) I am confused whether a gerund by itself is Simple or Complex?

Simple Gerund : swimming in the river
Complex Gerund : the swimming of Cindy
Simple or Complex ? : swimming

By itself, a gerund is simple. Gerunds are made complex and more "noun-like" by surrounding words, such as "of" phrases for objects, articles ("a" or "the"), and adjectives.

izaidi wrote:
2) Is a Simple Gerund parallel to a Concrete Noun?

ex1: I love swimming and Cindy. (With respect to this question, I am assuming that "swimming" is a simple gerund)
ex2: I love swimming in the river and Cindy.

Thank You

Yes, a simple gerund can be parallel to a concrete noun.

Examples:
My favorite activities are walking, hiking, and pilates.
He is an expert in hang-gliding and archery.
(your examples above are also correct)