Question

Christian wrote his version of a myth about Daphne and Apollo for his English assignment. Read this excerpt from paragraph 2 of Christian’s draft of his introduction and answer the question. He had slain a horrifying monster called the Python, a serpent whose poisonous body had coveredan entire hillside. It required a thousand arrows to kill it. What is the best way to combine the underlined portion to achieve parallel structure? a serpent whose poisonous body had covered an entire hillside and had required a thousand arrows to kill it. a serpent whose poisonous body had covered anentire hillside, and Apollo had required a thousand arrows to kill it. a serpent whose poisonous body had covered an entire hillside and requiring a thousand arrows to kill it. a serpent whose poisonous body had covered an entire hillside and who had required a thousand arrows to kill it.

Answer 1

The answer is C. A serpent whose poisonous body had covered an entire hillside and required a thousand arrows to kill it.

Answer 2

The answer is the first option: a serpent whose poisonous body had covered an entire hillside and had required a thousand arrows to kill it.

For a structure to present parallelism, it has to repeat a certain grammatical form inside the sentence. Option a is the only option that presents such repetition. It is talking about the serpent's poisonous body and the two grammatical structures that come after that have the same structure: Past Perfect Tense.

It is as if two sentences were combined into one to avoid repetition:

A serpent whose poisonous body had covered an entire hillside.

                                                  +

A serpent whose poisonous body had required a thousand arrows to kill it.

                                                 =

A serpent whose poisonous body had covered an entire hillside and had required a thousand arrows to kill it.

Note: The third option (or option c) is incorrect because it says "requiring", not "required".