Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved from the previous year, only

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that heirloom tomatoes look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins in that they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but these tomatoes are more flavorful.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Modifiers + Parallelism

• In a “noun + comma + phrase” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun; this is one of the most frequently tested concepts on GMAT sentence correction.
• Elements in a sentence should only be parallel if they play the same role in the sentence.
• Any elements linked by a conjunction ("but" and “although” in this case) must be parallel.

A: This answer choice incorrectly modifies "their round and red supermarket cousins" with "often green and striped", incorrectly implying that the heirloom tomatoes' round and red supermarket cousins are often green and striped; the intended meaning is that the heirloom tomatoes themselves are often green and striped; remember, in a “noun + comma + phrase” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun. Moreover, Option A uses the clause "Heirloom tomatoes...look less appetizing...or have plenty of bumps and bruises"; the parallelism between "look less appetizing" and "have plenty of bumps and bruises" incorrectly implies that heirloom tomatoes either look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins or have plenty of bumps and bruises; the intended meaning is that heirloom tomatoes look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins in that they have plenty of bumps and bruises; remember, elements in a sentence should only be parallel if they play the same role in the sentence. Further, Option A fails to maintain parallelism between "Heirloom tomatoes...look less appetizing..." and "are more powerful"; remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("but" in this case) must be parallel.

B: This answer choice incorrectly modifies "their round and red supermarket cousins" with "often green and striped", incorrectly implying that the heirloom tomatoes' round and red supermarket cousins are often green and striped; the intended meaning is that the heirloom tomatoes themselves are often green and striped; remember, in a “noun + comma + phrase” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun. Moreover, Option B uses the phrase "or with plenty of bumps and bruises", leading to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that heirloom tomatoes often have bumps and bruises. Further, Option B fails to maintain parallelism between "Heirloom tomatoes...look less appetizing..." and "more powerful"; remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("although" in this case) must be parallel.

C: This answer choice incorrectly modifies "their round and red supermarket cousins" with "often green and striped", incorrectly implying that the heirloom tomatoes' round and red supermarket cousins are often green and striped; the intended meaning is that the heirloom tomatoes themselves are often green and striped; remember, in a “noun + comma + phrase” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun. Moreover, Option C uses the clause "or they have plenty of bumps and bruises"; the parallelism between "Heirloom tomatoes...look less appetizing" and "they have plenty of bumps and bruises" incorrectly implies that heirloom tomatoes either look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins or have plenty of bumps and bruises; the intended meaning is that heirloom tomatoes look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins in that they have plenty of bumps and bruises; remember, elements in a sentence should only be parallel if they play the same role in the sentence.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "or with plenty of bumps and bruises"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that heirloom tomatoes often have bumps and bruises. Further, Option D fails to maintain parallelism between "Heirloom tomatoes...look less appetizing..." and "more flavorful"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("although" in this sentence) must be parallel.

E: Correct. This answer choice avoids the modifier error seen in Options A, B, C, and D, as it uses the independent clause "they are often green and striped", conveying the intended meaning - that "they" (heirloom tomatoes) are often green and striped. Moreover, Option E uses the phrase "or they have plenty of bumps and bruises", correctly maintaining parallelism between "are often green and striped" and "have plenty of bumps and bruises", conveying the intended meaning - that heirloom tomatoes look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins in that they have plenty of bumps and bruises; parallelism between these two phrases is correct, as both refer to an action taken by "they (heirloom tomatoes)". Further, Option E maintains parallelism between "Heirloom tomatoes...look less appetizing..." and "they are more flavorful".

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Phrase Comma Subject" and "Subject Comma Phrase" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

A, B and C clearly are wrong, because they take the information about heirloom tomatoes and put it into a grammatical structure which makes it a postmodifier of the SUPERMARKET tomatoes. (The grammatical structure used, if anyone cares, is a non-restrictive postmodifying adjective phrase. Actually, it is a sequence of two such phrases.)

The difference between D and E is also fairly obvious. In D, the two postmodifying phrases are not parallel in structure (clause with verb and prepositional phrase), while in E, they are both clauses with verbs. So only E can be correct.

The problem, as icandy says, is that "they" in E is still grammatically ambiguous. Maybe this indicates that the question is not an official GMAC question. But from what I have seen, even the GMAC itself is not perfectly consistent about pronoun ambiguity. I think (not quite sure) that sometimes they accept a pronoun ambiguity such as this one in one question, while treating the same thing as wrong in another question.

Sanjay I think you mean subject of the first sentence.

I think Heirloom tomatoes in the first half of the sentence is the subject.

I think the they/it refers to the subject of the first part of the sentence.

And am I correct in thinking that:

D. cousins; they are often green and striped (verb clause), or with plenty of bumps and bruises (prepositional phrase) although ---Hence NOT CORRECT
E. cousins; they are often green and striped (verb clause), or have plenty of bumps and bruises (verb clause), but they are ----Hence CORRECT

So it doesnt have anything to do with the usage of Although? D is not wrong coz of although?

"Although" cannot be used to introduce phrases. It should be followed with a subordinate clause, which has a subject and verb. (Ref OG 11, explanation for SC 9).

So B and D are out.
C out for using "they have plenty", where I feel "they" is ambiguously used and sentence structure is illogocal.

Out of A and E, E sounds logical, though in this option as well I find "they" used ambiguously.

IMO E

Above question has already been discussed in this forum.

But I need more explanation in reference to the usage of although in D.

Someone wrote in the previous three that Although don't have a subject in D, hence option D is wrong.

Please explain the above concept in detail.

Hi Mike,
I would like to have your inputs on the question. I prefer option E) to A) but I am not sure. Can you please explain once.
Thanks, Kinjal

The word "although" kicks of a dependent CLAUSE and needs a cleear subject.

Examples:

Although they had no umbrellas, the excited children ran outside to enjoy the summer rainstorm. -- Logical and Correct.
Although had no umbrellas, the excited children ran outside to enjoy the summer rainstorm - Illogical without the subject "they".

In option D [although are more flavorful], "although" does not have an explicit (or even clearly implied) subject, therefore it is incorrect.

KW

This is a meaning/modifier/parallelism SC so I would rate it at the 650 level

First three are incorrect answer choices. The clause often green and striped is meant to refer to Heirloom tomatoes not their cousins. Next, semi-colon is appropiate to separate both ideas.
Now between D and E, 'E' might look a little longer but its fine! It expresses the idea clearly in the last part after the comma showing //ism too (they are....but they are)

Looking good

E is our best choice

Hope it helps!
Cheers
J

Between D & E,
Although should always be followed by a bonafide noun-verb. In D, there is no noun after although. So the usage is wrong.
In E, comma + but is the co-ordinating conjunction which is properly connecting the independent clauses.

Dear Kinjal,
I am happy to respond. This questions is quite curious, because it's almost identical in topic to OG13, SC #132, and uses many of the same phrases, though in a different order. I would think that GMAC might be a position to sue a company for having a question so blatantly similar to its own. That does give me a bit of concern about the question and its authors.

In (A) - (C), among other problems, there's modifier ambiguity. We know logically that "often green and striped" should apply to heirloom tomatoes, but it touches "their round and red supermarket cousins." That's less than ideal.

Also, in (A), if we remove the modifying detail, the logic is wonky: "Heirloom tomatoes ... only look less appetizing ... or have plenty of bumps and bruises" ??? Why is that a choice, to "look less appetizing" vs. "to have bumps and bruises"? Joining these two verbs with "or" makes no sense. That's why (A) is definitively wrong.

The semicolon divide is a very clean, clear way to delineate the logic of the sentence. The parallelism removes any ambiguity about the pronoun: the pronoun "they" is subject of the second clause, so it is obviously in parallel to the subject of the first clause, and that first subject, "Heirloom tomatoes," is the antecedent. This is why (E) is the best answer.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi Mike,
In the first clause of this sentence, "their" was used to refer to "Heirloom tomatoes". is that the reason why "they" in the latter clause ambiguity-free?

Dear oldest,
I'm happy to respond.

My friend, many factors contribute to establishing the relationship of a pronoun to its antecedent. Here's the OA, version (E):
Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved from the previous year, only look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins; they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but they are more flavorful.
What contributes to our understanding that the highlighted pronoun "they" refers back to "heirloom tomatoes"?
1) As you suggest, just a single pronoun is used, with consistent antecedent, throughout the sentence
2) Parallelism. When we have two independent clauses in parallel, and a pronoun is the subject of the second, the parallelism strongly suggests that the subject of the first should be the antecedent.
3) Rhetoric. Think about it: what is the subject and focus of the entire sentence? Of course, "heirloom tomatoes." The fact that the entire sentence focuses on this single topic strongly suggests that any pronoun would be referring back to this focus.
In this well-crafted sentence, all three of these elements work in concert to reinforce one another. This makes 100% clear the antecedent of the pronoun.

Do not take the pronoun-antecedent relationship for granted. There are always many different elements of the sentence, at many different levels, contributing this relationship.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi expert,
In my 2 cents,option D could be a good contender of this question.
Option A,B,and C are gone as "often green and stripe" wrongly modifies cousins.
"they" in option E is not ambiguous;"they",as the subject" all refer to Heirloom tomatoes.
However,I find it difficult to eliminate option D.

Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved from the previous year, only look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins; they are often green and striped, or (they are)with plenty of bumps and bruises, although more flavorful.
or it is only acceptable only the 2nd independent clause reads ", although more flavorful,they are often green and striped, or with plenty of bumps and bruises.

Please shed some light on this
Thanks

"Although" ideally introduces a clause. However there are official questions, in which the phrase "Although+ adjective" is constructed to be used as a modifier - in such case the modifier should touch the noun it modifies. Here "although more flavorful" should touch "they".

Dear sleepynut,

I'm happy to respond.

Here's (D):
Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved from the previous year, only look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins; they are often green and striped, or (they are) with plenty of bumps and bruises, although (they are) more flavorful.
A few things to notice about (D).
1) It demands the implied subject-verb "they are" twice, two clauses in a row. Not grammatically wrong, but not exactly the most elegant and compelling structure.
2) Think about the phrasing: "they are with plenty of bumps and bruises." That's 100% grammatically correct, but extremely awkward. The natural thing to say would be "they [color=#00a651]have plenty of bumps and bruises[/color]." That is what a native speaker would say. Consider similar examples:
My friend is with a new car. = awkward
My friend has a new car. = natural
Company X is with 5000 employees. = awkward
Company X has 5000 employees. = natural
Again, the "with" examples here are 100% grammatically correct, but they are terribly "off" in a way that would sound jarring to a native ear. By contrast, the "has" construction sounds direct and clear: despite the simplicity, it has a kind of no-nonsense power that the "with" version dismally lacks.

Notice that (E) gets both of these things correct: (E) looks stellar where (D) falls in the mud. (E) is the best answer.

Mike

Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved from the previous year, only look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins, often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but are more flavorful.

(A) cousins, often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but are :green and stripped must modify H tomatoes and must be placed next to H tomatoes
(B) cousins, often green and striped, or with plenty of bumps and bruises, although :green and stripped must modify H tomatoes and must be placed next to H tomatoes
(C) cousins, often green and striped, or they have plenty of bumps and bruises, although they are :green and stripped must modify H tomatoes and must be placed next to H tomatoes
(D) cousins; they are often green and striped, or with plenty of bumps and bruises, although :parallelism error ,verb are so or must be followed by verb and not preposition
(E) cousins; they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but they are

Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved from the previous year, only look less appetizing than their round and red supermarket cousins, often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but are more flavorful.

(A) cousins, often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but are -green and stripped seem to wrongly modify supermarket tomatoes
(B) cousins, often green and striped, or with plenty of bumps and bruises, although -green and stripped seem to wrongly modify supermarket tomatoes
(C) cousins, often green and striped, or they have plenty of bumps and bruises, although they are -green and stripped seem to wrongly modify supermarket tomatoes
(D) cousins; they are often green and striped, or with plenty of bumps and bruises, although -"with" disrupts parallelism. "although" is not sounding correct.
(E) cousins; they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises, but they are -Correct