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New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields with
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Updated on: 12 Nov 2019, 04:24
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A
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E
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75% (hard)
Question Stats:
56% (01:50) correct 44% (02:00) wrong based on 1377 sessions
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New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields without the costly requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high yielding varieties.
(A) requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high yielding varieties
(B) requirements by earlier high yielding varieties of application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation
(C) requirements for application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation of earlier high yielding varieties
(D) application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation that was required by earlier high yielding varieties
(E) irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer that were required by earlier high yielding varieties
The new varieties promise to give high yields without the costly irrigation required by the earlier ''miracle'' rice strains developed at the International Rice Research Institute here. The new strains have not yet been tested in farmers' fields, but one particularly promising variety has produced test yields more than twice as large as those from traditional varieties.
So in the 1970's the mission of rice scientists became to develop high-yielding strains that were also resistant to disease and insect pests. That second frontier, too, was crossed, and once again the institute led the way. A strain called IR-36, the progeny of 13 different varieties from six countries, is the best example of that effort. First planted by farmers in the Philippines in 1976, IR-36 is now grown on more than 24.7 million acres of rice lands throughout the world.
Progress is likely to proceed gradually for two main reasons. First, breakthroughs inevitably become harder to come by as the work advances. Second, while the irrigated environments for earlier high-yielding varieties tend to be uniform, the adverse conditions of rain-fed areas vary tremendously. Some areas are drought-prone, but others are frequently flooded.
Re: New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields with
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31 Jan 2008, 21:03
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Well the sentence is trying to say, the new variety of rice shows promise of producing high yields without X and Y when compared to old variety of rice, which required both X and Y.
If we break X - requirements of irrigation Y - application of commercial fertilizer
New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields without the costly requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high-yielding varieties.
(A) requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high-yielding varieties without X and Y by earlier high-yielding varieties - ambiguous comparison .
(B) requirements by earlier high-yielding varieties of application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation without X by....and Y -don't need to say further
(C) requirements for application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation of earlier high-yielding varieties ugly -here we have split X itself.
(D) application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation that was required by earlier high-yielding varieties without Y and X that was....Was is a problem here. We are talking about additive phrase , need plural were.
(E) irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer that were required by earlier high-yielding varieties without X and Y that were required by earlier....clean comparison..agreement on pronoun _________________
I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight.
Re: New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields with
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31 Jan 2008, 11:14
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i think the best explanation for this question is to look at the meaning of the sentence. Requirements and application cannot be costly. Only the irrigation can, therefore right away you eliminate A, B, C and D, leaving you with E, which is the correct answer.
Relative pronoun issue that has yet to be answered
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17 Nov 2011, 12:20
New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields without the costly requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high-yielding varieties.
(A) requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high-yielding varieties
(B) requirements by earlier high-yielding varieties of application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation
(C) requirements for application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation of earlier high-yielding varieties
(D) application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation that was required by earlier high-yielding varieties
(E) irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer that were required by earlier high-yielding varieties
OA=E
Q: I understand "and" is a conjunction joining the two, but still everything I've read says that "that," "which," and "who," refer back to the noun or noun phrase directly preceding it. Therefore, allowing the plural "were" means this whole idea of the relative pronoun only being able to encapsulate the directly proceeding noun or noun phrase is totally out the window is it not???
Re: Relative pronoun issue that has yet to be answered
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17 Nov 2011, 13:49
stringworm wrote:
New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields without the costly requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high-yielding varieties.
(A) requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high-yielding varieties
(B) requirements by earlier high-yielding varieties of application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation
(C) requirements for application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation of earlier high-yielding varieties
(D) application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation that was required by earlier high-yielding varieties
(E) irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer that were required by earlier high-yielding varieties
OA=E
Q: I understand "and" is a conjunction joining the two, but still everything I've read says that "that," "which," and "who," refer back to the noun or noun phrase directly preceding it. Therefore, allowing the plural "were" means this whole idea of the relative pronoun only being able to encapsulate the directly proceeding noun or noun phrase is totally out the window is it not???
A relative pronoun can refer to the noun, or the noun phrase, before it. Occasionally, it's not clear whether a modifier is referring to the single noun or to the entire noun phrase that precedes it. For instance,
"The policies of the so-called 'purple' faction of the government, renowned for byzantine complexity..." would probably not be correct on the GMAT because it's unclear whether the modifier 'renowned for corruption' could be modifying the policies, faction, or government.
However, if a modifier can only apply grammatically to a single part of the noun phrase, then there is no ambiguity. "The policies of the so-called 'purple' faction of the government, renowned for their byzantine complexity..." could be considered right, because the word 'their' in the modifier unmistakably refers to the plural noun 'policies' at the very beginning of the long prepositional noun phrase. We can't possibly be confused into thinking 'their' refers to a single faction or a single government.
In choice E, the word 'were' following the word 'that' means that the relative clause MUST refer back to the plural noun at the beginning of the noun phrase--in this case, the compound subject "requirements and application."
Note that "Application.... and requirements...that were" would probably NOT be okay! In this hypothetical case, the were could refer to 'requirements' or to 'application and requirements'.
Re: Relative pronoun issue that has yet to be answered
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17 Nov 2011, 15:19
Thank you, that is helpful, but it leads me more to this Sentence Correction Catch-22 dilemma I constantly find myself in. Although here, I mainly want to address subject/verb agreement; you do bring up that which I also wonder about in reference to ambiguous pronouns. Often times, we say a pronoun is not ambiguous because it would not make sense otherwise. And then in another occasion, the pronoun is ambiguous because it does not make sense. I believe I have resolved this for the most part. But here, what is wrong with choice D? And based on your explanation; so can we never eliminate answer choices due to subject/verb disagreement in the presence of a "which," "that," or "who." I know that a relative pronoun can modify a noun or the whole noun phrase, but I'm very surprised that here it reaches out to two separate nouns just because it has a coordinated conjunction...but I guess that's allowed so I'll shut up now.
Re: Relative pronoun issue that has yet to be answered
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17 Nov 2011, 15:36
In (D), the modifier "that was required" has the singular verb 'was', so it CANNOT refer to the compound subject "Application...and irrigation." This messes up the meaning of the sentence. Also, the 'that was is still ambiguous' because the 'and' is ambiguous; in (D), it's not clear whether we're talking about the "application of [commercial fertilizer and irrigation]" or the "[application of commertical fertilizer] and irrigation.
Re: Relative pronoun issue that has yet to be answered
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18 Nov 2011, 21:00
Take for example:
The application of red, white, and blue, which were patriotic, my mom loved.
-Here we can use the plural tense "were" to know that the author finds the colors patriotic. (Let's just assume the country is taken over by foreigners and those colors are indeed patriotic colors as opposed to colors being patriotic).
or
The application of red, white, and blue, which was patriotic, my mom loved.
-Here we can use the singular tense "was" to know that the author found the application itself to be patriotic.
This is why I don't believe (D) is guilty of being ambiguous as you say it is. Sometimes, we use the tense to clear ambiguity and other times we say it's the cause of it...hence the grammar catch-22 I want to be debunked.
Re: Relative pronoun issue that has yet to be answered
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19 Nov 2011, 10:53
stringworm wrote:
Take for example:
The application of red, white, and blue, which were patriotic, my mom loved.
-Here we can use the plural tense "were" to know that the author finds the colors patriotic. (Let's just assume the country is taken over by foreigners and those colors are indeed patriotic colors as opposed to colors being patriotic).
or
The application of red, white, and blue, which was patriotic, my mom loved.
-Here we can use the singular tense "was" to know that the author found the application itself to be patriotic.
This is why I don't believe (D) is guilty of being ambiguous as you say it is. Sometimes, we use the tense to clear ambiguity and other times we say it's the cause of it...hence the grammar catch-22 I want to be debunked.
You second sentence would not be correct on the GMAT, because 'was' could refer to 'blue' or to 'application'. It would probably not be a correct answer to a GMAT question.
Re: Relative pronoun issue that has yet to be answered
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20 Nov 2011, 00:19
There's another problem with D. Irrigation isn't being applied. If you look at the full range of choices, "irrigation" and "application of comemrcial fertilizer" are treated as distinct elements. In both A (original) and E (correct), "irrigation" comes first. Two things are required: 1) irrigation and 2) application of commercial fertilizer, so we need "were" even without the ambiguity issue.
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Re: New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields with
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11 Oct 2016, 01:25
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A) requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high yielding varieties– this should be applicable to both "irrigation" and "application of commercial fertilizer". There is ambiguity on applicability to both the aspects B) requirements by earlier high yielding varieties of application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation – illogical meaning C) requirements for application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation of earlier high yielding varieties. – changes meaning. this should be applicable to both irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer D) application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation that was required by earlier high yielding varieties. – "application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation", plural "were" should be used. "earlier high yielding varieties" now correctly applies to both the aspects. E) irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer that were required by earlier high yielding varieties. – "earlier high yielding varieties" now correctly applies to both the aspects.
Re: New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields with
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12 Jun 2017, 10:18
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This topic is deep. The first point is to note is that the requirements are not themselves costly but the factors that are required such as the application of fertilizers and irrigation are costly. That is the reason we can dispense with choice A, B, and C instantly In D, a couple of factors are denoted by a singular verb 'was'. Only E remains.
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Re: New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields with
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12 Jun 2017, 11:44
New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high yields without the costly requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high yielding varieties.
(A) requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high yielding varieties this option says that application of CF was done by earlier high yielding rice varieties ... This is definitely not the meaning intended...
(B) requirements by earlier high yielding varieties of application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation this option says "application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation" again not the intended meaning ...
(C) requirements for application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation of earlier high yielding varieties Again similar to option B...application of commercial fertilize and irrigation !!!!"
(D) application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation that was required by earlier high yielding varieties "Was" is grammatically incorrect ...we need a plural verb
(E) irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer that were required by earlier high yielding varieties Was replaced by Were and Bingo ..no other errors... _________________
Re: New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high
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12 Nov 2019, 04:25
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Re: New hardy varieties of rice show promise of producing high
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56% (01:50) correct 
