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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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
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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.

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'.

Hope this helps!

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.

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.

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.

-Eli

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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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.

Thanks
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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
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...
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Choice E) seems kind of ambiguous as well, using costly directly in front of irrigation. That could easily mean that only the irrigation is costly, not the application of fertilizer—a change in the original meaning.

I think this is a rather poor question.

Meaning - New varieties show promise of producing high yields --> they can produce high yields without the costly required that were required by high yielding varieties. The yields were - irrigation + application of commercial fertilizer

(A) requirements of irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer by earlier high yielding varieties
- "requirements of irrigation" + "application ... fertilizer" = parallelism is correct
- application by earlier varieties - this gives a very funny meaning. It presents meaning as though the fertilizer is getting applied using high yielding varieties.
- Wrong

(B) requirements by earlier high yielding varieties of application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation
- application of (commercial fertilizer + irrigation) - ambiguity in parallelism
- "requirements of" would have been a better option
- Wrong

(C) requirements for application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation of earlier high yielding varieties
- "application of commercial fertilizer" is separated from "high yielding varieties" and the latter only modifies "irrigation" - Change in meaning
- Wrong

(D) application of commercial fertilizer and irrigation that was required by earlier high yielding varieties
- application of (commercial fertilizer + irrigation) - ambiguity in parallelism
- If application and irrigation are considered as separate entities then "high yielding varieties" modifies only irrigation - Change in meaning
- Wrong

(E) irrigation and application of commercial fertilizer that were required by earlier high yielding varieties
- "requirements of irrigation" + "application ... fertilizer" = parallelism is correct
- Both were required by "varieties" - correct modification
- Correct

when we expand the option C we get

without the costly requirements for application of commercial fertilizer and application of irrigation of earlier high yielding varieties.-----> why is this wrong

why is the "requirements for application of A and application of B - of C" wrong construction? there is no ambiguity and no verb tense issue either

option C clearly states that irrigation and application of fertilizer are no more expensive requirements to the present varieties

why is option C wrong? please comment

generis, daagh, EMPOWERgmatVerbal, GMATNinja, DmitryFarber.
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Hi sampriya,

Here is one way to take C out. Have a look option E:

the X and Y that were required by earlier varieties

This quite clearly tells us that earlier varieties required both X (costly irrigation) and Y (application of commercial fertilizer). Option C, on the other hand, leads to:

application of fertilizer and irrigation of earlier varieties

There is no to after fertilizer, so we don't have any connection between application and earlier varieties. That is, we end up with

application of fertilizer and irrigation of earlier varieties

instead of

application of fertilizer to and irrigation of earlier varieties
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Choice A: Requirements were not costly. If we read literally, it sounds as if application of fertilizers was done by the high yielding varieties (HYV) themselves.
Choice B: Requirements were not costly. Application of irrigation does not make sense. One can apply fertilizer. One cannot apply irrigation.
Choice C: Requirements were not costly. 'Requirements for' seems as if the requirements were gathered to present them to the HYV. Again, Application of irrigation does not make sense.
Choice D: Again, Application of irrigation does not make sense. 'Was' does not make sense with the compound subject.
Choice E: Fixes all the problems.
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Please explain option e. New varieties show promise of high yield without A and B those were required by old varieties.

That can refer to compound subject?

Check out this post and then let us know if you still have questions!
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