Basic circuit analysis?Which are parallel?
In schematics, we can think of resistors and other components as the roads and wires as nodes or forks in those roads. 

Note I said wires, not "connections". If you look at the schematic on the left below, you may think it has two connecting nodes. However that is just an illusion created by drawing components orthogonally. The circuit can be drawn equally correctly using the diagonal resistors as shown on the right. Here it is clearer that there is only one connecting node.







simulate this circuit &ndash; Schematic created using CircuitLab

Think of a node as a fork in the road...



Current will split between each path at a fork, but that does not necessarily make the roads parallel.

If you have a fork in the road, and both paths ONLY lead you to the same place, then it wont matter which fork you take. The paths are logically parallel. 

One may be a harder path and go much further, but they are still logically parallel.

This can be confusing in some schematics, however, it is important to look for forks and paths that start and end at the same point with no intermediate forks on either path that lead you to a different destination.

Look at the schematic on the left below  







simulate this circuit

You may now see that there are two nodes A, and B. At fork A, you can go down either the R1 path OR the R2 path and you will end up at node B. The opposite is also true, though maybe a little harder to see.

Once you see that you can quickly rearrange your circuit to show that R2 and R1 are in fact in parallel as shown. 

Note I personally draw resistors in parallel as I have indicated on the schematic on the right above just to make it clear to whomever is reading it that I intended them to be thought of as in parallel.

Of course, once you make a combination like that you have to then review the rest of the schematic to see that other paths you can now simplify.

Ultimately, rearranging your schematic into a logical forking flow makes the task a lot clearer.