Learn English – Use of Either… or, or, and or in English

either-or

Can I say "A test comprises an equal number of items concerned with either prospective or retrospective, long-term or short-term, and self-cued or environmentally-cued memory subscales"?

Best Answer

Judging from the context of options presented, I think you could slightly improve the clarity of what is meant in this sentence by inserting additional copies of "either":

A test comprises an equal number of items concerned with either prospective or retrospective, either long-term or short-term, and either self-cued or environmentally-cued memory subscales.

But I think a much better option than trying to load more into that sentence is to lay out the options in several sentences or a bullet list. For example, if I understand correctly:

A test comprises items concerned with various characteristics of memory subscales. These items should be equally split across:

  • prospective and retrospective
  • long-term and short-term
  • self-cued and environmentally-cued
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