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

Dear TGC, GMAT Ninja

In option E - 'to have it quickly processed...' - what does the pronoun "it" refers to? I understand that 'it' is plural and meaning wise it should modify frozen citrus (singular).

Thanks

(A) to process them quickly into juice concentrate before they rot when warmer weather returns: frozen citrus is singular, 'they' & 'them' are wrong here

(B) if they are quickly processed into juice concentrate before warmer weather returns to rot them: same error as in option A combined with unnecessary use of 'if'

(C) for them to be processed quickly into juice concentrate before the fruit rots when warmer weather returns: same error as in option A

(D) if the fruit is quickly processed into juice concentrate before they rot when warmer weather returns: unnecessary usage of 'if'

(E) to have it quickly processed into juice concentrate before warmer weather returns and rots the fruit: looks good

Option E it is

egmat, EducationAisle I rejected E because it refers to the frozen citrus why would GMAT rewrite the fruit later in the sentence and not use it? Isnt it redundant

Hi Deeptanshu02, instead of rots the fruit, if the sentence had used rots it, there would at least be some ambiguity whether it is referring to frozen citrus or juice concentrate.

While pronoun ambiguity is often not a deal-breaker in GMAT, here, the sentence, by mentioning the fruit, is just elegantly avoiding any ambiguity.

Hi

Let me try to address your query.

"It" is a singular pronoun, and is typically used to address nouns which are not persons. Therefore, both from a logic and tense perspective, "it" in option (E) can only refer to "frozen citrus", which is the correct reference to be made for the following clause since it talks about processing into "juice concentrate". The pronoun at that place cannot talk about growers.

Hence option (E) is the correct answer. Hope this helps.

The plural of citrus is citrus itself. How can we reject ABCD based on this...?
Also in E, have it processed is passive...I feel A is better.

Hi

If we were to consider "citrus" to be plural, then in answer options (A), (B), (C) and (D), the pronouns "they" and "them" can be considered ambiguous since we have another plural noun "growers" in the sentence, leading to logical inconsistencies.

Passive voice by itself is not wrong, grammatically speaking. It is simply that GMAT prefers active voice to passive voice, all else being equal. In order to rule out an answer option for using passive voice, we need a correct answer option in active voice, without any errors. That is not the case in this question. We can therefore select option (E) since there are errors in all the other options.

Hope this helps.

EducationAisle CrackVerbalGMAT

The OA for this states that "Before" is a better choice here than "When" because it shows the cause and effect better, could you please elaborate on that a bit more?

P.S Here: https://prnt.sc/vo8y77

Thanks for tagging me TargetMBA007.

The only thing that I can think of, is that when may just denote a correlation (and not necessarily causation).

Tagging other esteemed experts on this, for their opinions: GMATGuruNY, AndrewN.

Apologies for the delayed response, but I had some last-minute food shopping to do ahead of Thanksgiving (when grocery stores are closed, and when, coincidentally, I happen to do my weekly grocery run—on Thursdays). Thank you, TargetMBA007, for sharing that screenshot of the OE; it is a shining example of a poor-quality official explanation, unclear and generally none too useful. Although the explanation singles out a specific word, before versus when, to make a point, that point should have been built instead on comparing causality between the clauses that start with those words in the incorrect answer choices, and then putting on the finishing touches by breaking down the correct answer. Take a look at the sentence and answer choices again. I will draw attention to the clauses in question.


Notice how the arrow of time is backwards in choices (A), (C), and (D). I mean, we encounter rotting fruit before we know its cause, the return of warm weather. It is jarring to seesaw back and forth in time like this for no good reason. Choice (B) dodges this temporal bullet well enough, but then matters get murky with to rot, which can be interpreted as a sign of intent (i.e. in order to rot). (What malicious weather if so!) Indeed, the only option that presents a straightforward timeline with no ambiguity of meaning is (E), presenting concurrent actions in returns and rots instead. Now, getting back to that OE, it is true that before, rather than when, should be used in the context of the sentence to indicate a clear timeline that citrus growers must operate within to salvage their frozen fruit. Compare the correct answer with a dummy answer that swaps out before for when:

Correct: The only way for growers to salvage frozen citrus is to have it quickly processed into juice concentrate before warmer weather returns and rots the fruit.

Incorrect: The only way for growers to salvage frozen citrus is to have it quickly processed into juice concentrate when warmer weather returns and rots the fruit.

The correct sentence allows us to appreciate the impending deadline; the incorrect variation conveys that growers quickly process rotting fruit. So yes, before is preferable to when, as stated in the OE, but such a threadbare explanation is a disservice to GMAT™ aspirants.

I hope that helps clarify the matter. Thank you, EducationAisle, for bringing me into the dialogue. It is always an honor to be called upon by a fellow Expert to offer a second opinion.

- Andrew

EducationAisle - Thanks for that and for tagging other Experts.

AndrewN

Thanks Andrew. That's as comprehensive as it gets. That was really well explained.

MartyTargetTestPrep
Hello sir,
How do someone know that 'citrus' is singular? The word 'citrus' carries the plural sign 's/es'. People may mistakenly count the 'citrus' as plural because of its plural sign.
I read few SC problems where GMAC tried to introduce the word (if it carries s/es form) either it is singular or plural. The following is an official SC where GMAC introduced the word 'Diabetes' whether it is singular or plural using 'its serious complications'.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/diabetes-tog ... ml#p138969

You really just have to know the words.

Notice that, according to the GMAT Club tags, the citrus question is originally from OG 9. I think OG 9 came out around the year 2000. Similarly, the diabetes question is originally from OG 11. In the past, the test was likely not as well tuned to test the skills of non-native speakers of English as it is now. So, it may be the case that the GMAT would no longer use in such a way a singular word that could be perceived as plural by non-native speakers.

In any case, the only way to know that the words are singular is to know the words.

Thank you so much sir. Yes, it makes sense!

Hi GMATNinja MartyTargetTestPrep Have one doubt

The sentence means to say that the fruit rots because of the warm weather or when the warm weather returns. We are asked to be literal with GMAT SC but saying that
- weather returns to rot the fruit - Isn't that weird literally?

Is this a case where because of definite errors in other choices, we accept this error or is it not even an error to being with

Suggesting that warm weather "goes away" or "returns" isn't much of a stretch, so this is perfectly fine.

But your concern is a common one! Check out this post, which explains how the GMAT (and writers in general) can take a little bit of license with what performs an action.

I hope that helps!