The only way for growers to salvage frozen citrus is to process them

Hi Dipesh,

Let us solve this question using the 3 step process.


Meaning: The sentence says that there is only one way for growers to salvage frozen citrus fruits and that way is to process the citrus fruits quickly into juice concentrate before they rot when warmer weather returns.

Sentence Structure Analysis:

• The only way for growers to salvage frozen citrus is to process them quickly into juice concentrate

o before they rot

 when warmer weather returns.

As you can see, the error in this sentence is the usage of plural pronouns “them” and “they”.

“citrus” is used generically here and is in singular form.

It is similar to the following sentence,

a. The only way to catch a lion is to lay a trap.

Even though the sentence talks about every lion, it still uses the singular noun “lion”.

Same is the case with the above official sentence. “Citrus” is used in singular form. Therefore the plural pronouns “them” and “they” are incorrect.

Option Choice Analysis:

Option A: Incorrect for the reasons we already discussed.

Option B: if they are quickly processed into juice concentrate before warmer weather returns to rot them.

Same pronoun errors as in Option A. Moreover, the usage of “if” is incorrect. If is used to introduce a condition which is not the case here.

Option C: for them to be processed quickly into juice concentrate before the fruit rots when warmer weather returns.

Same pronoun error. Plural pronoun “them” is used to refer to the singular noun “Citrus”.

Option D: if the fruit is quickly processed into juice concentrate before they rot when warmer weather returns.

Again, plural pronoun “they” is used to refer to the singular noun “citrus”. Also the usage of conditional “if” is incorrect.

Option E: to have it quickly processed into juice concentrate before warmer weather returns and rots the fruit.

This is the correct option. Observe how this option corrects the errors in the previous options without introducing any new errors.

Regarding your doubt on parallelism, please note that the entities in Option E are of the form “X is Y”.

In such a structure, X and Y need to be parallel.

Examples:

He is a soldier. (“He” – Singular Noun; “a soldier” – Singular Noun)
Murder is a Crime. (“Murder” – Singular Noun; “a Crime” – Singular Noun)

Similarly in Option E,

to salvage – to+Verb
to have – to+Verb

This maintains the parallelism.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Krishna