ELPAC Practice

Which sentence is not parallel in structure?

Read a Student Essay · ELPAC Grades 11–12 reading. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.

An essay written as if by a classmate, with numbered sentences. The student finds the sentence containing the error.

Read the essay. Then answer the questions.

Why I Joined the Mock Trial Team

  1. I joined the mock trial team in my junior year mostly because a friend needed one more person to fill the roster.
  2. I expected to spend the season reading from a script, but mock trial has no script at all.
  3. Each team receives the same case file, which includes witness statements, police reports and a set of rules about what evidence may be used.
  4. From those materials, every team has to prepare arguments for both sides, because teams do not learn which side they will argue until the day of the competition.
  5. My role was to play a witness, a nurse who had seen a car accident from a bus stop.
  6. I had to memorize her statement, stay consistent under questioning, and I needed to sound like a real person instead of someone reciting.
  7. The hardest part was cross-examination, when the other team’s attorneys tried to get me to contradict my own statement.
  8. At our first competition, one question about the time of the accident made me hesitate for so long that the judge asked whether I needed a glass of water.
  9. Our coach said afterward that a long pause can effect how a jury sees a witness more than any single answer does.
  10. After that, I practiced with my teammates every afternoon until I could answer even the strangest questions calmly.
  11. By the regional round, I was no longer the person who had joined only to fill a spot on the roster.
  12. Next year I plan to try out for one of the attorney roles, which means learning to ask the questions instead of answering them.

The question

Choose the best answer.

Which sentence is not parallel in structure?

  • Sentence 3: “Each team receives the same case file, which includes witness statements, police reports and a set of rules about what evidence may be used.”
  • Sentence 4: “From those materials, every team has to prepare arguments for both sides, because teams do not learn which side they will argue until the day of the competition.”
  • Sentence 6: “I had to memorize her statement, stay consistent under questioning, and I needed to sound like a real person instead of someone reciting.”Correct answer
  • Sentence 10: “After that, I practiced with my teammates every afternoon until I could answer even the strangest questions calmly.”

Why “Sentence 6: “I had to memorize her statement, stay consistent under questioning, and I needed to sound like a real person instead of someone reciting.”” is correct

This tests parallel structure, where items in a list must take the same grammatical form. Sentence 6 begins a list of verbs after 'I had to', 'memorize' and 'stay', and then switches to a full clause, 'I needed to sound'; the parallel version is 'memorize her statement, stay consistent under questioning, and sound like a real person'. Sentence 3 is the useful contrast, because its list of three nouns is parallel.

Why the other answers are wrong

  • Sentence 3: “Each team receives the same case file, which includes witness statements, police reports and a set of rules about what evidence may be used.” — The list 'witness statements, police reports and a set of rules' is three noun phrases, so it is parallel.
  • Sentence 4: “From those materials, every team has to prepare arguments for both sides, because teams do not learn which side they will argue until the day of the competition.” — Sentence 4 has no list; its two clauses are correctly joined by ‘because’.
  • Sentence 10: “After that, I practiced with my teammates every afternoon until I could answer even the strangest questions calmly.” — Sentence 10 contains no series, and every part of it is grammatical.

Practice more of this

More reading practice for Grades 11–12, or see the ELPAC practice test for grades 11–12. For other grades, see free ELPAC practice tests by grade.

This is an independent study resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the California Department of Education or the official ELPAC program. All questions here are original practice material written to match the published task formats.