generis wrote:
Project SC Butler: Day 31 Sentence Correction (SC1)
Among the reasons for the decline of New England agriculture in the last three decades were the high cost of land, the pressure of housing and commercial development, and
basing a marketing and distribution system on importing produce from Florida and California.(A) basing a marketing and distribution system on importing produce from Florida and California
(B) basing a marketing and distribution system on the imported produce of Florida and California
(C) basing a system of marketing and distribution on the import of produce from Florida and California
(D) a marketing and distribution system based on importing produce from Florida and California
(E) a marketing and distribution system importing produce from Florida and California as its base
OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONMy annotations are in blue typeface.• Choices A, B, and C can be faulted for putting a verb phrase,
basing . . .where a noun phrase is needed to continue the list of parallel elements,
[a list] that begins with
the high cost of land, the pressure of housing . . . • Also, the "imported produce" in B suggests that the system is based on the produce itself
rather than on the practice of importing produce.
• In C, the
import of produce is unidiomatic.
"Importing produce" and the "importation of produce" are both acceptable,
and the former is much more likely to show up than the latter.
This detail is very small. Use the other basis (absence of parallelism) to eliminate C.• D, the best choice, presents a noun phrase (. . . a marking and distribution system)
that completes the list of parallel elements and refers to the act of
importing produce.
• E also supplies the noun phrase but states illogically that the system imports produce
as its [the system's] base.
COMMENTSWelcome to GMAT Club ,
Ypsychotic (great username) and @Topper87 , and a belated welcome,
Shah10 I'm glad that you posted,
aanjumz92 amd
shubham1985And of course, I always appreciate posts from longer-term members who consistently make these threads really helpful.
There are many good answers! I really like the analysis.
I still have the impression that "meaning in your own words" isn't quite understood.
This part from
aanjumz92 is an excellent start:
The question is essentially talking about three reasons that agriculture declined in New England in the last 30 years.Here is the correct answer, D, inserted into the sentence:
Among the reasons for the decline of New England agriculture in the last three decades were the high cost of land, the pressure of housing and commercial development, and
a marketing and distribution system based on importing produce from Florida and CaliforniaRewrite: Three facts help account for the 30-year decline of agriculture in New England:
costly land that farmers couldn't afford, less land available for farming, and
[some vague and abstract] infrastructure/system whose basis includes having imported too much produce from other states,
thus pushing New England produce farmers out of the market.
I know that it's a pain in the neck to rewrite meaning.
I don't always ask for meaning.
The good news is that no matter how fluent we think we are,
if we write down meaning while practicing, we start absorbing
both SC patterns (invaluable) and the subtle traps or tricks that GMAC uses.
HERE is an interesting article
written by a guy who had excellent command of grammar but who botched SC so badly that he got a tutor!
Among other things, he stresses that active reading is (1) imperative and (2) hard to develop.
Guess what having to write down the meaning requires?
Prateekj05 ,
aanjumz92 , and
shubham1985 have excellent answers. Kudos,
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