Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper crops, sugar beet and

Question

Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper crops, sugar beet and walnut in the region, but in the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.

A. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper crops, sugar beet and walnut in the region, but in the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.

B. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but in the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.

C. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but more effective pest-control methods that were introduced in the 1880s saved the citrus industry.

D. In the 1880s, pests destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region and more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.

E. In the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry from what was destroying grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region.

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Hey All,

Good thinking on this one, but I thought I'd just add in a bit more. This question involves a couple of different categories, parallelism and meaning. Let's look through the answer choices one by one.

a]Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper crops, sugar beet and walnut in the region, but in the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.
PROBLEM: Why would we put the word "crops" after chili pepper, but not any of the other terms? If anything, it needs to go at the end of the list, so that it will retroactively apply to ALL of the terms.

b]Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but in the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.
ANSWER: Parallelism is good. Also, the use of the past perfect is justified in the beginning of the sentence, because we have a regular past tense verb elsewhere in the sentence, the action of which occurs AFTER the past perfect action.

c]Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but more effective pest-control methods that were introduced in the 1880s saved the citrus industry.
PROBLEM: This is a very subtle issue of meaning and parallelism. In the case of B, we're contrasting the two actions "Pests had destroyed these crops...but in the 1880s". That's a contrast of time (we know this because of what comes after the BUT, which is a parallelism marker). In C, this has become "Pests destroyed these crops, but more effective methods saved the citrus industry." In other words, in B we're contrasting two different times, whereas in C, we're contrasting a time with "more effective pest control. Only B works.

d]In the 1880s, pests destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region and more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.
PROBLEM: "In the 1880s" is modifying both "destroyed and "saved", which is incorrect. We need two DIFFERENT times.

e]In the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry from what was destroying grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region.
PROBLEM: The verb "was" should be "had been", because that action took place before the action of "saved". This is also a more awkward construction than B and C.

Hope that helps!

chetan2u · Answer

A. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper  crops , sugar beet and walnut in the region, but in the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.
crops wrongly placed

B. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but in the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.
 structurally and grammatically correct

C. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but more effective pest-control methods that were introduced in the 1880s saved the citrus industry.
 crops rightly placed. but meaning changed. original meaning says that more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry in 1880s(these methods could have been introduced anytime but were effective in 1880s.. so wrong), whereas the sentence now says that these pest control methods were introduced in 1880s.

D. In the 1880s, pests destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region and more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.
 it changes meaning by saying that the crops were destroyed in 1880s.the original never says that ...so out

E. In the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry from what was destroying grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region.
 structurally and grammatically incorrect

ans B

acer2knight · Answer

Toughie, Between B and C :

b]Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but in the 1880s, more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry.
c]Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but more effective pest-control methods that were introduced in the 1880s saved the citrus industry.

Getting the right meaning is important I suppose. B conveys that more effective methods save the citrus industry in 1880.
C conveys that methods that were introduced in 1880 solved the problem.

Not sure which one to pick though. I would go for B.

What is the OA?

aniteshgmat1101 · Answer

This one is really confusing. D and E are out because of meaning change issue. I am trapped between B and C. Original sentence sounds unclear to me first, because if both the parts of the given sentence are facts then use of past perfect is not warranted. But since all the 3 options has past perfect in it, then the two parts of the sentence must convey a sequence of action, one after another. 'In 1980' in the middle of the sentence does not make the sequence clear. I mean it is not clear that when were the crops destroyed by the pests. Did it happen before or after 1980, this ambiguity makes it difficult to judge for the use of past perfect in first part of the sentence. Finally, chose C. (Time taken 3:15 mins

)

LaxAvenger · Answer

Could also be the other way round:
For me in C, the actions are logically constructed + past perfect -- > simple past indicate a shift in time and action.

Asking for GMAT Sentence Correction in general, can we assume that original meaning in the given sentence in the question stem is the logic that needs to be properly shown or is it possible that logic in the question stem is flawed already? I think so. And thus, your explanation would just be an assumption that the pest control methods were available earlier.

chetan2u · Answer

hi,
whenever there is a change in meaning, the meaning of the original always stays and is correct, unless all the options conveying original meaning are grammatically wrong....

Humblebuggie · Answer

i believe the phrase "but in the 1880s" itself indicates pest control were introduced during a particular time period (that is 1980s) and not in any particular year so there is no meaning change. So option C is clearly conveys the meaning. For B opt, it is a bit clumsy.

Shawnik · Answer

blakemancillas   TommyWallach

I thought that this question means: in 1880s, though crops A,B,C etc. were destroyed by pests, the effective pest control saved the citrus industry.

Is this not what the sentence means?

I felt choices A, B and C do not convey this message properly so they have to be ruled out. Please throw some light on this, because if this is not the case then the sentence does not make any sense to me.

sayantanc2k · Answer

Crops A, B, C, D and E were destroyed not in 1880, but before that year. Subsequently in the year 1880 pest-control was used, thereby saving crop F.

dcummins · Answer

The difference between B and C is clearer to me after understanding this.

In
B. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region,  but in the 1880s , more effective pest-control methods  saved the citrus industry .

B communicates that in the 1880s the industry was saved, C does not.

C. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but more effective pest-control methods  that were introduced in the 1880s  saved the citrus industry.

In C we are just told that methods saved the citrus industry, not that the industry was actually saved in the 1880s

hero_with_1000_faces · Answer

Hello  MentorTutoring   AjiteshArun

I went with C, how is B correct in this,  but   demands parallelism, so the sentence after  but   should have been a clause and  C  should have been correct IMO.

I dont agree with popular answer here: Pest had destroyed compared with in 1880. doesnt make sense.

Please help!

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  hero_with_1000_faces ,

We must ignore the prepositional phrase modifier to understand the actual structure of the sentence.

Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region ,  but   in the 1880s,   more effective pest-control methods saved the citrus industry .  ← The  but  joins two independent clauses here (" Pests   had destroyed ..." and "...  methods   saved ...").

hero_with_1000_faces · Answer

Thanks Ajitesh, however my point is But needs to be followed by the clause: more effective pest control. am I correct in my thinking

AndrewN · Answer

Sorry to chime in late on this one, but, well, I was sleeping. (It is about 6.30 where I live, so I am at it quite early.) I think  AjiteshArun  has shown above how there  is  an independent clause after the coordinating conjunction  but ... it is only delayed by the presence of an introductory phrase for that clause. The structure is no different from starting a sentence with any sort of phrase before jumping across the comma to the main clause:

1) Powered by a Core Processor, the computer was capable of...

2) In the 1950s, McCarthyism in the U.S. led to...

3) By 2050, the world population will have...

Any of the above sentences could be written with a conjunction at the head of the sentence (in an emphatic manner). Sometimes such phrases are surrounded by commas instead of employing a single comma at the end, but shorter phrases, especially those under five words in length, often omit the initial comma. This is more of a convention than a hard-and-fast rule.

I hope that helps. Thank you for the initial mention.

- Andrew

hero_with_1000_faces · Answer

MentorTutoring   AjiteshArun 
Understood, learned something new for me.
Thanks Andrew, good morning and good day!

so now that B is correct, this begs the question what is wrong with  C  then?

The only difference is presence of "methods that were introduced in the 1880s" and this logically makes sense to me. 
How do you think B and C differ?

AndrewN · Answer

You can go by the subtle difference in meaning and parallelism that  TommyWallach  has pointed out above, in  this post , but to be honest, whenever I see extra words in one answer choice that do not appear in another, I ask myself,  Are these words necessary? Do they add anything in the way of clarity that the shorter version lacks?  Compare the two sentence side by side:

Now ask yourself, does the clause with the extra information  that were introduced  add clarity to the sentence? Not really. At the very least, we can interpret (B) as saying that these  more effective pest-control methods  were not being used until the 1880s. In fact, I would be fine with cutting out the embedded clause altogether and focusing instead on the placement of the phrase  in the 1880s :

Version 2 :
C. Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper, sugar beet and walnut crops in the region, but more effective pest-control methods  that were introduced  in the 1880s saved the citrus industry.

If the expression of vital meaning is the same, then I would ditch the sentence with the superfluous words. (The placement of the time phrase makes more sense anyway at the head of the second independent clause.) You asked about my approach, and what I have outlined above is exactly what led me to choose (B) over (C).

I hope that helps you out. If not, you need only ask a follow-up question.

- Andrew

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Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper crops, sugar beet and

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Pests had destroyed grape, celery, chili pepper crops, sugar beet and

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