Over the past ten years cultivated sunflowers have become a major comm

Dear Experts,

I have 2 questions

1)
E. as a source of vegetable oil only second to soybeans

E is wrong because just "only" is wrongly placed or "as a source of vegetable is wrong placed too.


2) Does (A) act as a noun phase modifier to modify "Sun flower", right?

Dear Experts,

I have 2 questions

1)
E. as a source of vegetable oil only second to soybeans

E is wrong because just "only" is wrongly placed or "as a source of vegetable is wrong placed too.

2) Does (A) act as a noun phase modifier to modify "Sun flower", right?

Hello Everyone!

First, let’s scan over the answers quickly and note any major differences. Next, we can narrow down the bad answers to get to the correct one!

After a quick scan, we can clearly see a few major differences to address:

1. Placement of the word “only”
2. Placement of the phrase “as a source of vegetable oil”
3. Use of the phrase “in importance”

To start, let’s look at the difference between saying “second only to” and “only second to” to figure out which one we need:

X is second only to Y = only Y can be better than X out of all the options available

X is only second to Y = X is second to Y, but may be first, third, or tenth compared to other options available

Based on the meaning of both options, it makes the most sense to keep answers that use the “X is second only to Y.” To test this out, let’s add “sunflowers are” to the beginning of each answer to see if they work:

A: “sunflowers are second only to soybeans…” → OK
B: “sunflowers are second to soybeans only…” → WRONG
C: “sunflowers are second…only to soybeans…” → OK
D: “sunflowers are…only second to soybeans…” → WRONG
E: “sunflowers are...only second to soybeans…” → WRONG

Only answers A and C correctly use “X is second only to Y” and keep the original meaning, so let’s toss out the other three answers right away.

Now we’re left with just A and C. Let’s look at both answers together to find a clear winner

A. second only to soybeans as a source of vegetable oil.

This answer is CORRECT because it uses the proper structure of “X is second only to Y,” and it doesn’t include any redundant or unnecessary words.

C. being second in importance only to soybeans as a source of vegetable oil.

This answer is INCORRECT because there are added words in the answer that are unnecessary. The word “being” doesn’t add anything to the sentence’s meaning, and the phrase “in importance” is redundant. We can safely assume if things are being ranked in some way, they are ranked by order of importance.

That leaves us with the correct answer, A!

Don’t study for the GMAT. Train for it.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Can you please elaborate on what does for #1 - X is second to Y only mean? as used in option B

Hi, GMATNinja GMATGuruNY

Wondering what to do if the intended meaning is not clear. Here, I wasn't sure whether the author was trying to say that sunflowers are second to soybeans in terms of the major crops OR whether sunflowers are second to soybeans in terms of sources of vegetable oil. Perhaps this is a silly question, but it is why I chose D.