jainbob wrote:
I still cannot understand the different explanations present in the discussion. Would really appreciate if
GMATNinja can answer this one.
Apologies if we're too late to help you,
jainbob, but if we are, hopefully this will be useful for somebody else.
Let's start with choice (B):
Quote:
(B) In little more than a decade, Argentina has become the world’s leading exporter of honey, with the sale of nearly 90,000 tons a year to foreign markets, and almost half of it that goes to the United States.
Here, "
that goes to the United States" modifies the [something]... okay, but what does the
half (of something)
do? The verb "goes" is locked up in the "that" clause, so there is no main verb for the subject "half". That leaves us with a sentence fragment.
Also, notice the use of the present perfect tense: "...Argentina
has become the world’s leading exporter of honey..." The present perfect tense suggests an ongoing action, but "with the sale" seems to refer to sales that were
completed in the past. That certainly isn't a smoking gun, but, in light of the other issues, we can eliminate (B).
Quote:
C. with the sale to foreign markets of nearly 90,000 tons a year, with almost half of it going
As in choice (B), "with the sale" isn't ideal. And we also have the pronoun "it" to consider...
If we replace the pronoun "it" with "honey", we get, "... almost half of honey.." Well, half of
what is actually
going to the United States? Half of honey? Umm... what honey? All of the honey in the world? The sentence refers to honey
in general, so it doesn't make sense to say that "half of honey" goes to the United States.
So, again, what is actually going to the United States? Half of "the sale"? That doesn't work either. Some amount of honey is sold TO the United States, but the "sale" isn't the thing that
goes to the United States.
The thing that goes to the United States is some quantity of honey: half of the ~90,000 tons that are sold each year to foreign markets. So does the singular pronoun "it" refer to "90,000 tons"? In this context, we would say, "90,000 tons ARE sold each year", not "90,000 tons IS sold each year."
At best, the use of "it" is confusing and unclear. Let's see if we can find a better choice.
Quote:
D. selling nearly 90,000 tons a year to foreign markets, and almost half of it goes
(D) avoids the use of "with the sale", which wasn't ideal. Instead, "selling nearly 90,000 tons a year to foreign markets" tells us exactly how "Argentina
has become the world’s leading exporter of honey" and implies that Argentina is
still selling 90,000 tons a year (an ongoing action, which is consistent with the preceding use of the present perfect).
However, we run into the same pronoun issue that we saw in choice (C). Let's see if (E) is any better:
Quote:
E. selling nearly 90,000 tons a year to foreign markets, with almost half going
Choice (E) eliminates the pronoun issue altogether, so that's huge vote in favor of (E) over (D). Also, as described above, "selling nearly 90,000 tons a year to foreign markets" is better than "with the sale" (as in choice C). This makes (E) the best choice.
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