Among the reasons for the decline of New England agriculture in the la

The question states "among the reasons for this were," since it is going to state reasons, three of them it gave earlier and to maintain parallelism, we can eliminate A. B and C. Between D & E, E states that they are importing produce as Florida and California as its base. Seems wordy and nonsensical. So, IMO, option D

The sentence tests parallelism in terms of the reasons for the decline of New England agriculture in the last three decades.
What are these reasons?

• high cost of land, (nouns cost and land connected by and)
• the pressure of housing and commercial development, and (nouns pressure and development connected by and)
• marketing and distribution system importing produce from Florida and California. (noun phrase with noun: sytem and verb-ing importing modifying system

Ypsychotic





Who are they in your analysis?

As per my view in D and E, verb-ed based and importing correctly modifies preceding noun system.
The issue with E is: Its is a pronoun with referent to a singular noun. But which noun it refers to: Florida or California?
This ambiguity is unaccepted in GMAT.

generis aragonn VeritasKarishma AjiteshArun let me know your thoughts.

The question really tests your ability to get the parallelism correct in this question. Since the sentence starts with "Among the reasons", you are certain to have more than 2 reasons.
Now, if you look at the statement, the sentence gives you 3 different reasons. 1) the high cost of land 2) the pressure of housing and commercial development 3) basing a marketing and distribution system. The error lies in the 3rd reason since it is not parallel to the other 2.
The first 2 reasons are in the form of "Noun Phrase", so we should look at options that state the 3rd reason in "Noun Phase" form.

(A) basing a marketing and distribution system on importing produce from Florida and California - Wrong because of parallelism issue

(B) basing a marketing and distribution system on the imported produce of Florida and California - Wrong because of parallelism issue

(C) basing a system of marketing and distribution on the import of produce from Florida and California - Wrong because of parallelism issue

(D) a marketing and distribution system based on importing produce from Florida and California - Perfect. Keep this choice.

(E) a marketing and distribution system importing produce from Florida and California as its base - Wrong because of meaning error. "System"cannot import produce from Florida and California

Hope the explanation is clear.
Thanks !

My answer is "D".

The sentence has a smooth parallel structure, and is concise.

adkikani - I have eliminated E on the basis of meaning, among other issues ofcourse. E is employing that system is importing produce. while we are really looking for a system which is based on this idea. A subtle change in meaning. in addition I can't see "as its base" fit in, as you have mentioned in your choice. However without that part i think D is a better choice than E is.

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
My 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.

COMMENTS

Welcome to GMAT Club , Ypsychotic (great username) and @Topper87 , and a belated welcome, Shah10

I'm glad that you posted, aanjumz92 amd shubham1985

And 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 California

Rewrite: 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,

A, B, and C all break parallelism since the sentence is "were the cost, the pressure, and". We need a noun to start the last reason.

E is using "importing" which is incorrect since the reasons were in the past

D is the most correct

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