Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations, hailed in r

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



• HIGHLIGHTS

Try to understand the general meaning of the sentence.

Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations, hailed in recent years as having outgrown their roots in natural resources, still rely heavily on these commodities.

Meaning?

Remove the nonessential modifier and this sentence gets a lot easier:
Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations . . . still rely heavily on these commodities [natural resources].

The word "still" is in every option. "Still" indicates contrast.
→ Nations still rely heavily on these commodities/natural resources.
Implication: nations should not still be relying on these commodities.

Now look again at the part we removed to locate the contrast.
. . . nations, hailed in recent years as having outgrown their roots in natural resources, still . . .
In recent years, "nations" were connected to the idea of "having outgrown their roots in natural resources."

We have contrast.
Plunging prices reveal an important fact about nations.
On one hand, in recent years, nations were hailed [applauded, complimented, praised] for having outgrown their reliance on natural resources.
At the very least, we understand that nations were identified as having outgrown their [economic reliance on] natural resources.)

On the other hand, nations still rely heavily on these resources [these commodities].

Take a guess at the meaning of hailed from the context.
Hailed means praised or characterized as.
Even if you do not quite understand hailed, you do know that "nations" and "outgrowing their roots in natural resources" are connected.
Nations did not themselves say that they were "outgrowing" their reliance on natural resources.
So hailed falls somewhere in the range of "described" and "thought of," and it is positive.

You may know that hailed idiomatically takes AS, in which case you can eliminate (B) and (D).
Do not memorize that idiom. I've seen it used in only two official questions. One of them is the Holland Tunnel question.

As posters have noted, we should begin by looking for undeniable errors.

• Find the glaring errors

THE PROMPT


In the "find glaring errors first" approach, which I always use anyway, we take the options out of order.
When the meaning of a sentence is hard to grasp, we should try to eliminate 1-3 options that contain glaring errors.
Elimination builds confidence. Confidence keeps your mind calm.

Read each option but not too carefully. You're looking for glaring errors that jump out at you.

Reading quickly through options A and B probably does not yield any glaring error. And then comes option C.

THE OPTIONS


• no matter what that word hailed means, nations cannot be "outgrowths of their roots in natural resources."
-- a nation is not an "outgrowth"—an offshoot or byproduct—of natural resources or of a nation's [economic] roots in natural resources
-- the other four options use some form of the verb "to outgrow." This noun, outgrowth, is nonsensical.
• C is illogical. Nations would not be hailed as AN outgrowth of their roots in natural resources.
Rather, they are hailed for having outgrown their natural resources. This meaning sets up the contrast with the fact that in reality, nations still rely heavily on those resources.
Eliminate C

Option D does not yield anything glaring.
Don't get stuck. The verb phrase "are still relying heavily" may seem very tempting because it seems parallel to "are revealing."
We are not looking for a correct answer. We are looking for glaring errors.

Option E gives us a glaring error.


• The Case of the Missing Verb.
-- The subject nations lacks a working verb.
-- From above we know that nations is a subject connected to some form of the verb "to rely."
-- still heavily reliant is not a verb. (The phrase is an adjective.) The subject nations lacks a verb.
Try removing the nonessential phrase if you're not sure:
Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations . . . still heavily reliant on these commodities. No verb.
Eliminate E

• Remaining options?

Compare them directly. Line them up.

Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations, hailed in recent years ____________ on these commodities.

A) as having outgrown their roots in natural resources, still rely heavily
B) to have outgrown their roots in natural resources, are still heavily reliant
D) to outgrow their roots in natural resources, are still relying heavily

Test the first part:
A) . . . nations, hailed in recent years as having outgrown XYZ
B) . . . nations, hailed in recent years to have outgrown XYZ
D) . . . nations, hailed in recent years to outgrow their XYZ

The least logical of the three is (D).
At this point we should see that hailed means something similar to regarded, described, characterized, or praised.
Our sentence is about contrast, but without outgrown (as in, should have happened) as is the case in (D), we are left without the solid contrast:
Although nations should have outgrown their reliance on natural resources, nations still rely heavily on those resources.
Eliminate D

• Option A or B? Compare everything.

A) Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations, hailed as having outgrown their roots in natural resources, still rely heavily on these commodities.
B) Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations, hailed to have outgrown their roots in natural resources, are still heavily reliant on these commodities.

Five years ago, just about every use of having was wrong.
At present, although having is not frequently correct, it is not always wrong.
GMAC caught onto the " avoid having" shortcut.
More importantly, at times, the word "having" in English is better than any other word.

I think that one of those times is apparent in option (A), but I also think that the difference is much too subtle and not something you need to understand.
Take this next part on faith, but please, do not try to extract a rule or guideline from it.

When having is paired with a past participle (a verbED), it suggests a past condition (among other things).
The phrase hailed as having outgrown resembles described as having outgrown or characterized as having outgrown.
The phrases all place this fact firmly in the past. (The fact is the belief.)
It was believed that nations had outgrown their reliance on natural resources.

In (B), the phrase hailed to have outgrown also places that belief in the past.
I do not think that the phrasing is as effective, but my explanation would bore you all to tears.
More importantly, you do not need to understand that level of subtlety.

We can, however, compare B to A a simple way. We can test the synonyms of hailed.
Do the synonyms both convey the "in the past" meaning and seem idiomatic?
→ described to have outgrown
→ characterized to have outgrown

Those two phrases should sound incredibly weird to you.
At the very least you should think "not great."
(To be blunt: the phrases are wrong. We need hailed AS, described AS, and characterized AS. But we're trying to avoid idiom overload.)

Okay. Let's assume that you still can't decide.
(It would also be safe to assume that the words "never choose an option with having" are giving people a headache.)

• VERBS
A) Nations . . . still rely heavily[/i] on these commodities.
B) Nations . . . are still relying heavily on[/i] these commodities

This one is not a close call. Option A wins.
There is no need to maintain parallelism with "plunging prices are revealing."
"Are revealing" suggests that the event in in the process of happening.

By contrast, we do not need to convey a sense of unfolding or progress.
The fact that nations still rely on natural resources is not a good thing.
Say so. Use the stronger verb construction.
In option B, "are still relying on" is in passive voice. Passive voice is not necessary. Too many words!
In option A, "still rely" is in active voice.

Choose option (A) because its stronger verb in active voice creates stronger contrast.
Choose option A because it says the same thing as B says but A uses fewer words.
Concision is a decision point at the end of analysis.
(If options differ, concision is always a decision point. I would wait until the end to eliminate an option on the basis of concision. Other errors are easier to call.)

Eliminate B.

The best answer is A.

COMMENTS

soulcycle and gmatdordie , welcome to SC Butler.

I tried to avoid reference to the idiomatic usage of "hailed as" because this question can be decided without resort to the idiom.

I think I erased as many lines as I wrote.

My hat is off to everyone who posted.
No kidding.
I want you to take risks.

I want you to get used to being wrong once in a while.
You will get questions wrong on the test.

Confidence is partly a result of resilience. (Confidence is also faking it till you make it.)
You teach yourself resilience when you get on a forum, post an answer, and are not sure whether you are correct.
You teach yourself resilience when you do not care about what others think.
You teach yourself resilience when you force yourself to explain, in the best way you can, whatever it is that you have learned.

Everyone, nicely done.
Your posts are well-reasoned even if you took a wrong turn. I read them all.
Latecomers, your well-written posts earn you kudos, too.

And especially to Doer01 , soulcycle , and suchithra , who all reasoned to the correct option: very nicely done!
Kudos to all.

EDIT: (1) For those of you who get email notifications with the whole post, I just edited (B)'s last part (no change in analysis) and
(2) I wanted to ask (of anyone, not just people who posted): if you avoided (A), did you do so because "having" is rarely correct?