Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red su

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Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the correct choice quickly! To get started, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

(A) Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year
(B) Although heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins
(C) Although they appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year
(D) Grown from seeds saved during the previous year, heirloom tomatoes appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins
(E) Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, although they appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins

There is a lot to deal with here, right? If you look carefully at WHY each of these options is so vastly different, you should be able to pick out the grammar concept we need to focus on:

MODIFIERS!

Let's take a look at the original sentence for clues:

Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

The portion of the sentence in blue is called a parenthetical. It's a non-essential phrase plugged into the sentence between parentheses or dashes to add more information or to emphasize a point.

The portion of the sentence in pink is a modifier. It is another non-essential phrase meant to add more details about heirloom tomatoes, but it's not necessary.

One thing we can try to rule out wrong options is to eliminate the parenthetical and the modifier. If the sentence still makes sense without it, then leave it for later. However, if it doesn't make sense, then eliminate it! Let's see how each option looks with the non-underlined portion added in:

(A) Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

This doesn't work! Read the sentence with the parenthetical and modifier taken out. It ends up butting the words "heirloom tomatoes" and "heirlooms" next to each other, which sounds awkward. So let's rule this one out because it's clear that the parenthetical and modifier aren't in the right place.

(B) Although heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

This is OKAY for now! If we read the sentence without the added parenthetical and modifier, it sounds fine. So let's keep it for later.

(C) Although they appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

This also doesn't work! Read the sentence with the parenthetical and modifier taken out. It ends up butting the words "heirloom tomatoes" and "heirlooms" next to each other, which sounds awkward. So let's rule this one out because it's clear that the parenthetical and modifier aren't in the right place.

(D) Grown from seeds saved during the previous year, heirloom tomatoes appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

This doesn't work because it created a run-on sentence! Both portions in red are independent clauses without any conjunctions or punctuation connecting them. So let's rule this one out because it's actually a very, very long run-on.

(E) Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, although they appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

This also doesn't work! The way this is organized creates a major problem. The phrase "although they appear....cousins" was turned into another modifier. If we remove that one as well, this doesn't make sense. So let's toss this one out too!


There you have it - option B is the correct choice! It's the only sentence that uses modifiers and parenthetical phrases correctly! All the other options fall apart because the modifiers are in the wrong position or worded awkwardly. Remember - when dealing with long sentences that have several non-essential phrases, start by crossing them out and seeing what's left over. It's a quick, easy way to spot problems without needing to think too hard about it!


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