Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last becau

Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year.

A. Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were While The pronoun “they” could cause some degree of confusion, in comparison to the other options, the verb form “expected” is better.

B. Heating-oil prices are expected to rise higher this year over last because refiners pay about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did “Rise higher” is redundant.

C. Expectations are for heating-oil prices to be higher this year than last year's because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did The comparison is awkward. It would be better to say “Expectations are for heating-oil prices to be higher this year than last year.” Also, the noun form “expectations” is not as preferred as the verb “expected.”

D. It is the expectation that heating-oil prices will be higher for this year over last because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil now than what they were The phrase “higher for this year” is awkward. Also, the noun form “expectations” is not as preferred as the verb “expected.”

E. It is expected that heating-oil prices will rise higher this year than last year's because refiners pay about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than they did “Rise higher” is redundant.

- Nitha Jay

Could You please help me understand why is it ok to say "Than Last Year", It appears like prices are compared with year here. Please help me understand on this

Ellipsis is at its full play in this topic. Let me paraphrase it, with the elliptical elements in parenthesis.

A) Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year
than last (year) because refiners are paying about $5 a
barrel more for crude oil than they were (paying) last year.
One can now see how the comparisons are smugly fitting in.

2.) It is expected that heating-oil prices will rise
higher this year than last year's because refiners
pay about $5 a barrel for crude oil more than
they did

A cue for the correctness of the comparison can be had from the placement of the comparison -marker such as than etc. The comparison marker is place placed either next or prior to what it compares. Here in this case, than is placed next to this year and therefore the comparison should legally appear with a similar feature such as last year and not last year’s.

Another example

Even though Béla Bartók’s music has proved less popular than Igor Stravinsky’s and less influential than Arnold Schonberg’s, it is no less important.
(A) Stravinsky’s and less influential than Arnold Schonberg’s, it
(B) Stravinsky’s and less influential than Arnold Schonberg’s, he
(C) Stravinsky’s is and less influential than Arnold Schonberg’s is, it
(D) Stravinsky and not as influential as Arnold Schonberg, he
(E) Stravinsky and not as influential as Arnold Schonberg, it

Now the comparison- marker ‘than’ is placed just before the Arnold Schonberg’s, implying that something that belongs to Stravinsky is being compared. And the text says that Béla Bartók’s music is compared with Arnold Schonberg’s music. Here music is elliptical

Hope Chocie E is no serious contender

The pronoun “they” always jumps off the page at me, and in this case, it seems to refer to “refiners”, the most recent plural. That’s fine.

I’m also OK with the comparison: “refiners are paying… more for crude oil than they were [paying] last year.” I don't think that it’s ideal, but it’s definitely not wrong, and the GMAT would argue that the word “paying” is implied after “were.” Again, I’m not crazy about it, but it conveys the meaning clearly enough.

So let’s keep (A), I guess.


The phrase “expected to rise higher this year over last” is definitely a mess. You would never say that prices “rise higher.” They either just rise, or they just ARE higher. I’m also not sure why we would use “over last” instead of “than last.”

The placement of “more” is also really confusing. “More” modifies “pay about $5 a barrel”, and there’s no good reason to stick the word “more” so far away from the phrase it logically modifies.

But for whatever it’s worth: “they” still seems to refer perfectly reasonably to “refiners.” And the word “did” replaces the verb “pay” (or “paid”, since “did” is past tense). So those things are OK.

But I don’t think we can get over the silly placement of “more” and the "rise higher" mess at the beginning of the sentence. So (B) is out.


(C) has a couple of problems right in the beginning of the sentence. First of all, I can’t understand why we would say “expectations are for… prices to be higher this year.” That’s a horribly indirect way to say that “prices are expected to be higher.” The prices are the focus of the sentence, and it’s best if the prices are the grammatical subject of the sentence.

The comparison is also pretty goofy. “… heating-oil prices to be higher this year than last year’s…” The problem here is the possessive “last year’s.” We could say something like “this year’s prices are higher than last year’s”, or we could say that “prices are higher this year than last year.” But it makes no sense to say that “prices are higher this year than last year’s.”

So (C) is gone.


Like (C), (D) starts with an unnecessarily wordy expression: “it is the expectation that heating-oil prices will be higher this year…”. That’s not WRONG, exactly, but it’s definitely a crappier way to say “prices are expected to be higher this year…”

There’s also a problem with the phrase “higher this year over last.” You could say that prices were “higher this year than last”, but I can’t understand why we would use “over” in this context.

We also have an extra word that muddies the end of the underlined portion: “refiners are paying… more for crude oil now than what they were last year.” There’s absolutely no reason to include the word “what” in this sentence: “than they were last year” is enough by itself.

That’s enough to let us cross out (D).


(E) combines a bunch of problems that we saw in the other answer choices. “It is the expected” doesn't make any sense at all, especially when (A) gives us a much nicer option (“prices are expected to be higher…”). Also, there’s no reason to make “last year’s” possessive – see the explanation for (C) for more on this issue.

Finally, it doesn’t make sense to say that “prices will rise higher this year.” You could say that “prices will rise”, or that “prices will be higher”, but it’s redundant (and damned weird) to say “prices will rise higher.”

So (E) is out, and we’re left with (A).

I have a doubt, which is also pointed by you, that how can "are paying", which is present tense", be referred back by "were". IMHO if there is shift in tense then the verb cannot be implied.

Please clarify where I am going wrong.

Due Regards.

Dear spc11,
I'm happy to respond.

My friend, you may find some answer to your question in the thread above, but I am happy to discuss this as well. One very tricky issue, particularly difficult for folks whose native language is something other than English, is the issue of dropping repeated words in the second branch of parallelism. See this blog article:
Dropping Common Words in Parallel on the GMAT

Consider an expanded version of the sentence:
Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than the heating oil prices last year because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were paying for a barrel of crude oil last year.
That is the whole sentence, with absolutely nothing omitted, so that everything is perfectly clear. The GMAT would consider this completely redundant and much longer than necessary, because every single word in red is repeated. The words in red are words in the second branch or the parallelism that already appeared in the first branch. From the GMAT's point of view, it is redundant to repeat information in the second branch that we already know form the first branch. Thus, the GMAT recommends dropping all the words in red: when we do that, we get the prompt version, choice (A), of this SC problem, a sleek and elegant sentence. The GMAT loves elegance.

Your job on the GMAT SC is to see a sentence with the words already omitted in the second branch of parallelism and to figure out what words from the first branch would be needed to make sense of the second branch.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi, I got your point but I have a doubt.
IMO it should be Heating-oil prices are expected to be higher this year than last year's because refiners are paying about $5 a barrel more for crude oil than they were last year.
because prices are being compared.

According to option A time is being compared. Can you please explain how to determine whether prices are compared or time is compared?