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: Prices (of natural resources) are going down. These continuous reductions in prices are revealing some information about some nations. These nations were previously believed to no longer depend on natural resources. However, these recent price reductions show that they still rely heavily on natural resources. It can be inferred that the price reductions are having a toll on the economies of these nations.
Split #1: hailed as having outgrown vs hailed to have outgrown
Both idioms are correctly used in options A and B.
Option A: 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.
There is nothing obviously wrong with this option. Hence, let's keep option A.
Option B: Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations,
hailed in recent years
to have outgrown their roots in natural resources,
are still heavily reliant on these commodities.
Grammatically correct. Hence, let's keep this option B also.
Option C: Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations, hailed in recent years as an
outgrowth of their roots in natural resources,
still rely heavily on these commodities.
The right idiom is hailed as having. Hailed as an outgrowth does not make sense.
An outgrowth should rather be
outgrow. Eliminate option C.
Option D: Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations, hailed in recent years
to outgrow their roots in natural resources, are still relying heavily on these commodities.
The right idiom is
hailed to have. In addition,
outgrow should be
outgrown. Eliminate option D.
Option E: Plunging prices are revealing the extent to which nations, hailed in recent years
as outgrowing their roots in natural resources, still heavily reliant on these commodities.
The right idiom is hailed as having. In addition,
outgrowing should rather be
outgrown. Eliminate option E.
Between options A and B, the difference is as follows:
Option A: nations still
rely heavily on these commodities.
Option B: nations
are still heavily
reliant on these commodities.
Option A is more concise. The verb
rely is more concise than
are reliant.
Hence on the grounds of concision, I have chosen option A over option B.
The right answer is option A.PS: This question reminds me of the question on salads, whereby Babylonians
are known to have doused.....