Good news in the world's poorest countries is that growth

IMO it should be D.

parallelism is maintained.

E is wrong because of "is"


Regards

Argha

this is why E is correct

(E) the amount of [arable land and the average crop yield per acre] is increasing

"the amount of " is singular thats why IS

eMJ,

Thanks for pointing it out as I missed it(amount and not amounts).

However, that rakes up yet another(guess the basic one) issue. How are 2 separate items ie. arable land & the average crop yield per acre being clubbed as 1 item?

It should be both amounts and are



Regards

Argha

Why is D wrong..it repeats the THAT perfectly....or is it that the news is considered as singular from the use of IS in the non underlined part and hence the news can only be one and should be covered with a single that ??

would appreciate if someone can point out the exact reason for dismissing D as the right answer

(D) the amount of arable land is growing and that the average crop yield per acre is increasing
(E) the amount of arable land and the average crop yield per acre is increasing

I have a problem with the OA on this one.

In E, you have improper parallelism and meaning with the parallelism starting after "amount".

The amount...is increasing
of arable land
AND
the average crop yield per acre

To be fully parallel, we would expect similar structures ("of" arable land and "of" average crop yield). From a meaning standpoint, we can have an amount of land, but you can't have an amount (a sum) of the AVERAGE crop yield per acre.

With D, the parallelism starts with "that".

Good news in the world's poorest countries is... {should read "The good news"}
that the amount of arable land is growing
and
that the average crop yield per acre is increasing

We have nice parallelism in both clauses and there is no redundancy because the amount (a sum) is growing while the average is increasing. Using different modifiers (growing/increasing) leads to proper meaning.

KW

(D) the amount of arable land is growing and that the average crop yield per acre is increasing - Correct

(E) the amount of arable land and the average crop yield per acre is increasing - This change the intended meaning.

There is similar question in Official Guide. I do not know the number but it is on parallelism subject.

It is hard to accept E a correct choice.

IMO none of the answer choices are grammatically correct! D would be the best bet duh!

As subject i.e. "good news" is singular so object of the sentence must also be singular. Hence structure " that....." is preferred over "that.... And that....." . In this case E suits the best.
Only one question that why " is increasing is used" remains unanswered.

Open for discussion and guidance
Thanks in advance

So I guess the correct answer to this one should be D right?

Cheers
J

I too feel that the answer should be D and not E. In D, parallelism is maintained while preserving meaning too but in E, the amount of arable land and the average crop yield per acre [ is not a compound subject to have 'is'.

Please modify the OA.

(E) is correct -

the amount of arable land [is increasing] and the average crop yield per acre is increasing

Intent of the sentence: It communicates 2 good news for the world's poorest counties,
1. Amount of arable land is increasing
2. Crop/Acre is increasing.

Error analysis: Presence of 2 that's indicates that there are three clauses in the sentence.
1. Good news in the world's poorest countries is that,
2. growth in the amount of arable land and that, and
3. the average crop yield per acre is increasing

But Subject Verb pair in clause 2 is not present thus it is not a clause but a noun phrase.(SV Error)
By the logic Entity 2 and 3 should be parallel entities, but 2 is a noun phrase and 3 is a clause thus 2 and 3 are not parallel.(parallelism error)
Also per the original sentence growth in the amount of arable land is increasing, that makes no sense.(Meaning Error)

Apart from those no other errors are there in the original sentence.

Elimination of Answer choices:

A. Wrong as per error analysis.
B. Errors are similar to those present in choice A.
C. First that in the sentence indicates an upcoming clause but since there is no verb after that thus not a clause. (SV error)
Also growth in the amount of arable land (noun phrase) and increasing the average crop yield per acre (simple gerund) are not parallel. Also the answer choice introduces a meaning error as the phrase increasing the average crop yield per acre means that crop yield per acre has been increased by some means (and it has not increased by itself( that was the original meaning)).
D. Number error. Two clauses are presented that are joined by and thus make a plural entitiy, however in the non underlined portion a good news is mentioned. Thus incorrect.
E. Number Error. In the clause following that there is a compound subject in form of A and B thus plural. Thus Subject and Verb don't agree in number.

Thus none of the answers is correct, and I can conclude that there must have been some problem in posting the question.

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