This fall two out of five households in the United States

Question

This fall two out of five households in the United States will harvest some of  their own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots .

(A) their own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots 
(B) its own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots 
(C) their own food from vegetable gardens in a backyard or a city lot 
(D) their own food from vegetable gardens in backyards or city lots 
(E) its own food from a vegetable garden in a backyard or a city lot

PrashantPonde · Accepted Answer

The right answer should be D. Here is why:-

As the sentences talks about two out of five households, the related pronouns used should be plural. Hence use your 3/2 technique to cross of answer choices with 'its' and shortlist down to 3 with 'their'.

(A)  their  own food from  a vegetable garden   in backyards and city lots 
 -- This choice does meaning error with 'a vegetable garden'. It can mean - there is One vegetable garden simultaneously present in multiple backyards.

(B)  its  own food from  a vegetable garden  in backyards and city lots 
 -- Pronoun error with 'its'. Also does meaning error with 'a vegetable garden' as explained in choice A

(C)  their  own food from  vegetable gardens in a backyard  or a city lot 
 -- Meaning error. It nonsensically means that 2 out of 5 households will harvest from multiple gardens found in One backyard.

(D)  their  own food from vegetable gardens in backyards or city lots 
 -- This is correct. No pronoun or meaning error as found in other choices.

(E)  its  own food from  a vegetable garden in a backyard or a city lot 
 -- Meaning error. It nonsensically means that 2 out of 5 households will harvest in one garden in one backyard or one city lot. The intended meaning requires multiple backyards/lots.

talk2sunder@gmail.com · Answer

I will pick A. 

Not sure on this but I dont think "it" is the correct pronoun for households.

gayathri · Answer

OA is D.

I picked A too, I thought D was changing the meaning of the original sentence.

Btw, is there any rule as to when its ok to pick a choice with a slightly different meaning that given sentence? Or should we just use common sense?

vprabhala · Answer

gayathri can you please post the explanation given for D.

ssumitsh · Answer

I will go with D.

Two households take the plural 'their' rather than the singular 'it'. vegetable gardens and backyards look better in plurals because a singular vegetable garden would mean that all the households will harvest the same vegetable garden.

twixt · Answer

I was between A and D.
Maybe A is wrong because you can suppose all this households will use the same garden while there is no hesitation with D.

qhoc0010 · Answer

When there are choices between "and" and "or", "or" seems to be always to correct answer.

gayathri · Answer

Its from a paper test and has no accompanying explanation.

talk2sunder@gmail.com · Answer

On closer analysis, A does imply that all families get their food from one vegetable gardens. D makes sense logically.

greenandwise · Answer

D is my answer. It's all plural like it is supposed to be...."..households...gardens...backyards...city lots"

Jabrah · Answer

This fall two out of five households in the United States will harvest some  of their own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots.

(A) their own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots
(B) its own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots
(C) their own food from vegetable gardens in a backyard or a city lot
(D) their own food from vegetable gardens in backyards or city lots
(E) its own food from a vegetable garden in a backyard or a city lot

THREAD MERGED ; PLEASE USE FORUM SEARCH OPTION FOR EXISTING QUESTION

Mansoor50 · Answer

GMATNinja

Hi....could you please explain this question......i am unable to discern how/why the meaning changes in the usage

vegetable garden ... a vegetable garden .... in a backyard....in backyards

thank you in advance

amresh09 · Answer

D is correct. 
(A) their own food from a vegetable garden in backyards  and  city lots - As per my understanding AND is not right here. It means "Vegetable garden in backyards and city lots together while intended meaning is vegetable garden in backyards or city lots, Any one can work. 
(B)  its  own food from a vegetable garden in backyards  and  city lots - 
(C) their own food from  vegetable gardens in a backyard or a city lot 
(D) their own food from  vegetable gardens in backyards or city lots 
(E)  its  own food from a  vegetable garden in a backyard or a city lot

shubham1985 · Answer

The bigger error probably with A is the meaning here.
A : 'their own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots ' The statement here indicates that there is a vegetable garden spread across multiple backyards and city lots. However, if you look the correct option 'D', it indicates multiple vegetable gardens in backyards.

Thanks !
Please cosider pressing kudos if my explanation helped you in any way !

lary301254M7 · Answer

(A) is illogical 
their own food from  a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots

How can there be a garden in many backyards and city lots?

(D) is the correct answer

pratyush86 · Answer

Going by SVA - we can eliminate it's and keep 'theirs'.

A,C and D remain.

multiple vegetable gardens need to be mapped to the multiple backyards.

Hence we are left with Option D

AG182709 · Answer

(A) their own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots - Only problem with this option is of meaning. It seems that the two households will harvest from a specific vegetable garden in backyards and city lots - this does not make sense. Right? How can one specific vegetable garden be in backyardS and city lotS

(B) its own food from a vegetable garden in backyards and city lots - SVA error + error of option A

(C) their own food from vegetable gardens in a backyard or a city lot - error here is that we are referring to a specific backyard or city lot

(D) their own food from vegetable gardens in backyards or city lots - correct option

(E) its own food from a vegetable garden in a backyard or a city lot - SVA error + error of option C

davidbeckham · Answer

Could someone explain what's wrong with A and C?

adstudy · Answer

Hey  davidbeckham ,

Lets take A and C side by side, with the non-underlined part, for us to understand each better -

Here the problematic term is 'vegetable garden'. The meaning we get from this sentence is that every 2 out of 5 households will harvest their food from one vegetable garden and this ONE vegetable garden is present in MULTIPLE backyards and city lots. 
This is non-sensical. Hence is not the correct answer.

Opposite to the above, here it means every 2 out of 5 households will harvest their food from ONE backyard or a city lot.
This is again non-sensical as we definitely know that we will not be able to feed 40% of the households of US with ONE Backyard or A city lot harvest.
Hence this is also not the correct answer

Hoping this to be helpful

This fall two out of five households in the United States

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

This fall two out of five households in the United States

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